


Buchanan

by itshysterekal, seapigeon



Series: AIs and robots and Steves, oh my! [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Gore, Horror, Pre-Slash, Thriller, crossdressing unrelated to gender identity expression or questions, steve is a cis male and certain about it, stucky is endgame but this fic is pretty much entirely gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 14:49:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17941772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itshysterekal/pseuds/itshysterekal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: It’s just a computer,he began to repeat to himself.It’s a machine. It doesn’t actually hurt.Steve isn't perfect, but he's pretty sure he doesn't deserve to be trapped in a house by an eerily advanced AI and its psychopathic creator as an involuntary test subject. The high tech prison seems impossible to escape, but maybe, just maybe he can teach this AI named Buchanan right from wrong. The trouble is, Steve's never met a computer that he wants to save in return.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Your beautiful art and visuals are provided by the amazingly talented seapigeon, who i am so grateful claimed my fic!
> 
> The writing would not be nearly as neat and clean (possibly also not finished) without my fantastic beta, ravenclaw2313. She was a great cheerleader from day one, and an appropriately guilt-dishing bully when i asked for it *muffled noise* days until the project deadline. I'm working 2.5 jobs and moving house in addition to being terrible at time management, so this fantastic human being stayed up until the wee hours last night suggesting edits and pointing out plot holes. Any remaining errors or inconsistencies are my own fault for not taking every last bit of her advice.
> 
> Both of these people deserve so much praise for tolerating my slowness with such patience.
> 
> Lastly, this fic is a fusion AU _inspired_ by Netflix original movie Tau. The setting, premise, and bits of plot and dialogue did come from this film, though i threw in several surprises and did completely change at least one thing. Even if you have seen Tau, i am certain you will not be spoiled on Buchanan.

Air whistled through the hole in the plastic masking the lower half of his face. Steve traced the edges, hooking his fingers under the rim running along his cheekbones and dragged them back toward his ears where thick zip tie-like plastic held it securely in place. He tried to stop breathing through his nose as the hole was over his mouth and the warmth of his exhale was only making it hotter and more uncomfortable in the mask. He felt along the straps and found no buckle or release of any kind. Steve pulled on it anyway, desperate to get it off. Even breathing through his mouth did little to help since the hole was slightly smaller than a pencil. It was all he could do to stay calm and keep his breathing slow. The last thing he needed was to panic or have an asthma attack. 

He looked around. The floor was concrete, and the lighting was sparse. This was definitely a cell of some kind, though it was too big to be a jail or prison. Frosted windows let in tall, soft rectangles of light that did nothing to illuminate the many dark corners. The only reason Steve had decided this was a cell rather than a room or a warehouse or a goddamn Chuck E. Cheese was that he could see _literal bars_ on one wall. He pulled on the mask a few more times before accepting that the only way he was going to get it off was going to involve something sharp. 

Steve struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the bars. He couldn’t quite see what was outside of this (giant, probably off police radar, fuck was he going to die here?) cell, and getting to the bars would at least get him a clearer picture. 

Steve froze as another figure loomed into his vision, waving madly. For the first time Steve realized he wasn’t alone in the room. He backed away until he suddenly recognized the figure. All he could see was the man’s hair and eyes, but he’d know Morita anywhere. The man had disappeared weeks ago. Howler’s Pawn Shop wasn’t the most reputable shop around, but mostly no one questioned where the jewelry, phones, and watches came from. Dum Dum (who probably had a real name that was something else) employed people like Steve and Morita who had no other means of income as his commandos. The Howling Commandos were very good at performing less-than-legal tasks. Most of them worked in pairs. Happy Sam had been out of his mind with worry over where his partner had been. Well... Steve had found him. Too bad both Steve and Morita were imprisoned God knows where for God knows what reason. Too bad Steve didn’t have a partner to worry over him. 

Morita held up his hands as if he expected Steve to calm down or stop fighting. Had Morita met him? Steve had been fighting since before he was born. He didn’t know how to sit down or be quiet when he disagreed with a situation. By all rights he should have been stillborn, but he was alive and kicking, and the doctors were grateful for a subject that had gotten them published in a leading medical journal. Apparently, he was some kind of medical miracle in spite of his many ailments. 

So, naturally, Steve raised an eyebrow and shook his head. He wasn’t about to sit down or be quiet. 

He headed toward the bars, ignoring the others who didn’t even bother to try to stop him. The two he could see somewhat clearly watched him with a passive disinterest that said they didn’t believe there was a way out and had accepted the situation as hopeless. Steve laughed in the face of hopelessness. He’d taken beatings in worse situations than this. Probably. 

He stopped just shy of the bars, looking for a lock he could pick, but he couldn’t even figure out where the door was. Peering through, Steve couldn’t even make out much of the hall. The only windows appeared to be the slivers inside the cell. On the wall opposite their prison, there was some wiring and plumbing and a screen. It wasn’t doing much, and there was nothing worthwhile on the monitor. It was the kind of backlit black that meant it wasn’t off, and in the middle there was a hazy red star. It glowed and looked electric, filling out so that its edges softened even though it had five points. He hadn’t seen this logo anywhere before, which made it even more likely that they weren’t going to be found. 

Steve reached for the bars to test their sturdiness, half turning as Morita’s shout was muffled by the plastic mask, and the next thing Steve knew, the floor was slamming into his bony knees. He was holding his wrist like his hand had been burnt, but the only pain he could feel was in his knees. His lungs felt drunk and there was a metaphysical haze around his head at ear level that made him feel disconnected from the chaos of Morita trying to check in on him. Steve blinked, filling his lungs slowly and deliberately. Once he was sure he wasn’t about to die or have a medical emergency, he raised his gaze to the other Commando’s. He tilted his head as if to say _What, you expected me to die that easy?_

Morita rolled his eyes and looked approximately one and a half times as grumpy as he had earlier. He rose and reached a hand to help Steve before immediately retracting it at the sound of stone and grinding. Immediately all the other inmates (or whatever they were considered, locked up together at some black site with no way to communicate) flattened themselves against the stone walls and stared at the floor. Steve had no such compunction and immediately raised his chin in defiance to stare their captor in the eye. 

This proved to be quite difficult as it was a floating sphere. Steve’s eyes widened. How was it floating? He couldn’t even make out a motor sound as it approached him. 

Shit, it was approaching him. He started to retreat before remembering that would just result in another nasty shock that might not turn out as well for him. He clenched his jaw and did his best not to show his fear even as some kind of prod began to slide out menacingly. Steve jumped as it sparked, but otherwise didn’t react. He didn’t even know what it wanted. He was reminded of a short story he’d read in school. There was a man who’d found a field filled with dead or unconscious dinosaurs and then a floating sphere with a stabby thing (or was it an arm?) had begun chasing him. The man had run all night, having to maintain at least five miles per hour so it didn’t catch him. The sphere was collecting specimens within a certain weight range. God, he wished he could re-read that story. He remembered the ending. The man had run for so many hours that he’d dropped the five pounds (probably in pure sweat) and, after the sphere lifted him and discovered he was too light, it let him go. 

Well, Steve couldn’t afford to lose any weight and there didn’t appear to be any kind of correlation between sizes of the inmates, but it did suddenly occur to Steve that they could be part of some deranged experiment of which the public would not approve. It also occurred to Steve as the thing sparked threateningly at him again that he was being chased and herded. It moved to his shoulder and sparked him, so he stood, and it immediately slotted in behind him, sparking his spine. He tried to cuss it out, but the mask just made him sound like he was doing a terrible impression of a caveman. 

So, Steve did the only thing he could do: he let it shepherd him into the door that had formed in the wall. It shut with a heavy noise that settled in his gut, cutting him off from the other prisoners. The sphere disappeared into an aperture in the upper section of the wall which immediately closed off once it was inside. Steve couldn’t have reached it anyway. 

He looked around at the stone walls. He was in a hallway and suddenly had very little desire to explore it- which didn’t matter since it was both a dead end and the wall literally started moving behind him like the world’s cleanest trash compactor. 

He was incredibly pissed off that he was going to die like this. 

Steve walked forward, trying to think, trying to will something into existence he could use to winch the wall from moving. His heart was about to beat out of his chest and he almost couldn’t breathe. The far (nearer, now, so much nearer, holy shit, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck fuck) wall looked heavy and solid and Steve didn’t really want to be crushed to death with no one to miss him or ever know what had happened to him. Dum Dum had other Commandos. They were all replaceable, even if they weren’t expendable. No one was going to find them. 

Then, suddenly, the (not) far (anymore) wall opened. Steve fell to his knees in relief. He even risked shutting his eyes for a moment as he gathered his frayed nerves and tried to twist them back together. Once he felt steadier, he finally looked up. He was in some kind of laboratory. It was empty except for a few counters with nothing on them, and some kind of chair that made him think of alien abductions. 

Shit. What if-? No, he wasn’t going to think that way. That was impossible. Aliens weren’t real, and if they were they wouldn’t be interested in defective humans like Steve. 

And then another goddamn drone appeared. Steve didn’t give it any reason to shock him this time- he’d had enough of that. For now, he could swallow his pride. For now. 

It ushered him into the chair, and Steve felt that queasy nervous feeling again. As soon as it returned to its vent-door-whatever, he was getting out of that chair again. No force on this Earth (because aliens weren’t real, so he was definitely on Earth) could convince him to stay in that thing. It looked like a dentist’s chair, but he was pretty sure it only looked ordinary. The trouble was, as soon as the sphere started floating away, straps locked him down. He struggled and felt the belting bruise his chest, hips, and ankles. His wrists were already in bad enough shape from the zip ties. This wasn’t okay. He didn’t like this. He let out a muffled yell that could have been anger or could have been terror, but was probably both. Steve really, really didn’t like being tied down and whoever was in charge was going to hear about it even if Steve had to get himself shocked unconscious. 

A human-sized door opened across the room and Steve stilled, back arched and knees bent in a frozen caricature of his struggle. He knew what he looked like: a skinny, sickly thing that was at least a head shorter than his peers. He knew that, inside, this guy was laughing at him. 

At least he didn’t show it. 

Steve waited for him to say something, anything, but the man had a cold disregard for him as if he were no more significant than the chair itself. It really didn’t bode well that the man seemed to have dehumanized Steve. He struggled again, unable to help himself, and the indifference only seemed to intensify. The man’s face was mostly hidden behind a surgical mask, so at least they were even on that front. His hair was dark and impeccably groomed. The stranger was definitely managing that serial killer aesthetic like a professional. 

He started touching the back of Steve’s neck, removing some kind of patch, there was a bit of pressure and suddenly Steve’s entire body seized and his mind plunged into lightning images of his life. It wasn’t the whole thing, just the highlights… Well, highlight implies a positive connotation. There weren’t a lot of those that stood out, and what was flashing through his mind were the strongest, clearest memories he had. It started easy, with hospital waiting rooms as his mom died, got into his dad using him as a punching bag after catching him kissing Sammy Wilson sophomore year. Shit, Steve had forgotten about Sammy. The first and last person who’d noticed something was wrong at home for Steve. The first and last person to try to save him. Steve was pretty sure that neither of them were gay, but it had been really easy to fall for someone who’d told him he deserved better, that he was worth anything at all. Steve had been a moron to believe him. 

More images assaulted him, clubs, stealing shit, getting caught, DumDum saving him from jail. The Commandos teaching him how to crossdress and teasing him about how pretty he was and how the blue dress brought out his eyes. He didn’t give a shit that they were giving him a hard time. It worked. Men flocked to him, practically giving him their wallets they’d grind so close on him. He’d gotten his ass kicked a few times, but often they never noticed he had a dick. Once or twice, they’d seemed more interested in him because of it. He got away from those ones as fast as he could. Even if he had been what they were chasing, Steve still didn’t think he’d be able to get past the look in their eyes that said he was a commodity to them. When he’d been taken, he’d expected one of them. He never would have dreamed up these sci-fi mind experiments and prison cells. Steve wondered for a moment what had happened to the dress. 

Finally, everything stopped. He was barely aware of his muscles loosening and his body slumping in the chair before it all went dark. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Steve came to in the cell. Morita was watching over him with a cross between sympathy and anxiety. It was becoming clear that this was not a situation where helping your fellow man was praised. Morita pushed a cup with a straw into his hands and tapped the hole on the front of the mask. Steve nodded his understanding as he set the cup down before carefully sitting up and scooting to rest against the wall. His body was not built for the kind of strain that came with being shocked and having his mind… invaded? What the hell did the stranger do to him? He reached his bound hands over his shoulder, straining for the back of his neck, and felt a piece of flexible plastic. Why couldn’t he feel it on his neck? He flicked it back. The skin underneath had no feeling, but his fingers understood plenty. There was something embedded in his neck. 

Steve turned to look at Morita for an explanation, but the Commando was already retreating. They wouldn’t be playing a rousing game of charades, then. Steve’s stomach rumbled and his entire body felt like a limp noodle, so he didn’t try to stop the man’s departure. It wasn’t like knowing would change anything. He opted instead for the path of least resistance and struggled with the cup before finally removing the straw and putting it into the hole of the mask. He flinched as the sharp edges of it poked his lower lip and wiggled it until he could properly get it into his mouth. Then he brought the cup to the straw clenched between his teeth. He sipped. It was liquid, that was for certain. The texture was smooth and thin like water, but the flavor could only be described as _grey_. Why it was a color and not a flavor, Steve couldn’t explain; that was the only way he could describe this drink (food?) if he ever got out of here and someone asked. 

When he got out of here and someone asked. 

Steve looked out over the room again. He’d been pretty certain there were at least two others besides him and Morita, and now that his eyes were adjusting he was sure. Besides Morita and Steve, there was a woman who reminded him of a younger Miss Renata who ran the bodega across the street from Steve’s building. Steve liked Miss Renata. She’d given him a free bag of frozen peas when he got punched by a middle aged man who was making some lewd advances and wouldn’t take no. Steve had a problem with minding his own business. When someone was in a less than desirable situation, it was like someone else took over his body. In those moments, Steve wasn’t a 5’4” asthmatic. He was a 6’ superhero. 

Until he got knocked out or they couldn’t bring themselves to tussle with him anymore. 

He was halfway through the drink when one of the spheres appeared. Even the air in the cell went still as it scanned them. Steve froze, liquid halfway up the straw. It was obvious that they all knew what happened if the sphere picked you. Steve couldn’t even be relieved when it headed away from him. If it didn’t take him, it would still take someone. They all watched silently as it took the woman. That’s when too-big-for-his-body-Steve took over. He slammed the cup down and struggled to his feet. She eyed him like he’d lost his mind. She looked at least halfway out of her own. Another sphere zipped into the room and stood menacingly in front of Steve. He was startled into inaction for a brief moment before pushing past it… and then he was on the floor, his muscles quivering with the after-effects of the shock as the wall slid closed behind the spheres and the prisoner he was now calling Miss Renata. 

Shit. 

Steve let his cheek rest on the cool stone of the floor and managed to fall asleep. Or unconscious. He wasn’t sure if it mattered anymore. When he woke up, Morita wasn’t watching over him this time. Steve dragged himself back to the drink he’d abandoned and fumbled the straw through the mask to his mouth. He needed nourishment or their captors weren’t going to have to kill him; he’d die first. Once it was gone, he let himself sleep again. 

The spheres continued to come and go, taking a prisoner with them each time. Miss Renata hadn’t returned when they came for Steve next, and he had a terrible feeling about what that meant. He was nearly shocked unconscious before they got him in the chair. The stranger sighed heavily as Steve continued to struggle weakly. Steve actually paused, waiting for him to say something. Sure, he didn’t expect an apology or any form of kindness, but he at least expected some kind of request or to have it pointed out how pointless the struggle was. He expected the stranger to maybe try to reason with him that he was only hurting himself digging those bruises into his torso and legs. Still, the stranger said nothing. 

Steve was ashamed to admit it, but he begged. His pleas were muffled, but they still had to sound like _don’t,_ or _please_. Par for the course, the stranger ignored him and continued to treat him like an interesting bacteria sample, plugging whatever it was into the back of his neck. God, these people had done something to his body, wired directly into his- 

The images assaulted him again, rushing past like a poorly-filmed biopic. They weren’t as clear. Steve wasn’t as clear. He could feel himself getting smaller, disappearing, like he was a name on sheet of paper with a flame slowly eating away at his edges. Soon, he’d just be _tev_ and then _e_ and then… nothing. He knew exactly what had happened to Miss Renata: he’d been fried, burned out, thrown away like an empty ketchup packet. 

This time, Steve didn’t lose consciousness. Maybe he was building a tolerance or maybe the food was some kind of super-smoothie. He didn’t care because today there was a tray of tools by the chair and Steve hurriedly stuffed a pair of forceps into his waistband Steve wasn’t actually sure what forceps were, but they sounded like maybe they could apply to the scissor-looking things he’d stolen. 

The spheres left too slowly. Steve knew they probably only had the one speed, but they seemed to drag on and on after depositing him in the cell. Finally, the wall slid shut and the spheres disappeared into their vents. He immediately pulled the choppers from their hiding place and cut the mask off. Steve breathed deep and basked in the cool air on his face, the lack of humidity from his own trapped exhalations. He turned them awkwardly, but they were too short and awkward to reach the zip ties that held his wrists. He headed for Morita and was relieved to see Miss Renata was back and still alive. 

“Cut these off me,” Steve demanded and couldn’t believe it when Morita actually shook his head. Steve frowned, shoving the scissors into the Commando’s hands and consequently pushing him into a wall as he tried to keep backing away from the contraband. “Cut these off me!” 

Morita shook his head again and Steve let out a growl of frustration. He reached up to cut the mask from the man’s face and Morita actually tried to get away, like he wanted to remain imprisoned until his brain was fried into nothing. “What the hell is wrong with you, Stevie?” Morita demanded as the mask fell away. 

Steve only glared at him, wondering how he could dare use the teasing nickname when he wouldn’t even cut Steve free. “Me?” Steve asked incredulously. “Do you want to die down here? Happy Sam is going to need a new name, you jerk. I know we joke about you two, but he loves you in whatever way and you’ve been missing for two weeks. Two. _Weeks._.” 

“He’s worried about me?” was the only thing that seemed to land. 

“Yeah, pal. Now cut these off me- or do you actually want to die down here?” 

Morita paused for another second before springing to life. “Hell no,” he agreed and finally cut Steve’s hands free. He wiggled his fingers to try to ward off the pins and needles sensation before freeing Morita. He went for Miss Renata next and she barely reacted. “You okay?” he asked worriedly. 

She didn’t respond so Morita responded for her. “She’s had a few more rounds down the hall than we have. You’ve figured out…” 

“They’re frying our brains?” 

Morita nodded. “Hell if I know what for,” he remarked wryly. “Don’t even know her name. You think she’s got family?” 

“I think we were chosen because whatever family we’ve got ain’t coming looking for us.” 

Morita didn’t respond, but his face hardened. “Come on. Maybe if I give you a boost-” 

“I know I’m scrawny, but I ain’t scrawny enough to get through the sphere-holes, Morita.” 

Morita laughed and it was a really good sound. He led Steve to the bars. “I’m not tall enough to reach the lock without getting shocked, but if I lift you…” 

Steve looked up and his eyes narrowed in annoyance. Just outside the cell, the lock he’d been looking for earlier was on the ceiling. He could see the cracks now, too wide to really hold the bars up top unless they were attached to something. There was no door because the entire wall of bars went up, not open. Steve nodded, even though he hated the constant reminders of his height. He broke the forceps (or whatever they were) apart so he had two points for picking the lock. Unfortunately, it was just far enough away from the bars that he couldn’t get the tiny blades angled right, not while keeping his balance, not without leaning against the electrified bars. 

“This isn’t working. Put me down.” 

Morita did and Steve looked around the room. Their captors had done a great job of making sure they had nothing but the clothes on their backs. So what could they do with a few plastic masks, some clothes, and a now-broken pair of scissors? 

Steve looked out at the electric panels. They needed the bars powered down so he could get to the lock. They didn’t have string, but maybe…. 

Morita gave him a look as he started using a blade to rip small pieces of fabric from his pant leg. He began to understand as Steve started tying them together and started using the other blade to go after his own clothes. Eventually, they had a pretty long rope. Steve tied one end through the straw-hole of his mask and slipped it between the bars. “If we can hook the power to the breaker…” 

He tried several times before he got a shock and Morita took a turn. “Shit,” Morita cursed. “That one’s a gas line, so we need to be really careful.” 

Steve perked up at that. “Yeah,” he agreed thoughtfully. He eyed the concrete holding the bars. They’d both hit the lever enough times to know the mask wasn’t going to hook it any time soon and the longer they spent trying to get out of this cage, the less time they had to find the exit before someone figured out they were escaping. “My turn.” 

Morita gave him the mask and Steve immediately replaced it with half the forceps. He managed to get it to wrap around the gas line and pulled until it broke. “Stevie, what the hell-?” 

“Get back, I’m getting us out the fast way.” 

Morita grabbed Miss Renata and hurried back so they were tucked into the concrete windows. Steve threw the scissors at the metal frame of the breaker twice before he managed to make a spark and hurled himself behind a concrete pillar. He screamed as the heat rushed past him, but he was fairly certain it hadn’t done too much damage. Miss Renata finally looked awake. All three of them rushed out and tried to get their bearings. There was smoke everywhere and Steve did his best not to inhale. He pulled the shirt up over his face even though he was loath to replace one mask with another. Still, he couldn’t afford to trigger an asthma attack right now. It finally began to clear and he squinted down the hall. 

“Elevator!” Morita announced and as one, they rushed down the hallway to it. Steve spotted some debris from the blast, and grabbed two pieces of broken pipe and a rock as they passed. Morita had already pushed the button to call the car. Whether they were going up or down was a mystery, and it struck Steve how little they knew about their predicament. Were they on the ground floor (couldn’t be a basement with the light from the windows, right?) or the top? 

Five seconds felt like five years as they waited for the doors to open. “What’s your name?” Steve asked Miss Renata. 

“Katie,” she replied quietly. She gave him a nervous look, but it was dampened. The edges of her paper had been burned away and there was a fog in her eyes. He didn’t have time to dwell as the doors opened and the three of them piled in. It was almost a joke to be in such a nice, clean elevator after being imprisoned and tied up and then almost blown up by Steve’s half-baked escape plan. It was good to have clearer air to breathe, though. He kept his shirt over his face anyway. 

There were only three levels, and no lights or numbers to indicate which they were already on, so Steve hit the middle one. There hadn’t been an exit where they were, but there had been sunlight, however filtered. He couldn’t help but picture the walkout basement that Sammy’s house had had in high school, and decided that the middle floor was the ground floor. The elevator ride was so smooth that Steve was afraid they weren’t even moving. His own heart was jolting harder than their ride. Tensely, he passed the rock to Morita and one of the pieces of broken pipe to Katie. They both accepted the impromptu weapons without response and the three of them gripped them tight. These were, after all, their only means of defense. 

Finally, the doors opened and they cautiously peeked out. It was empty. There were no guards, no one at all. The lights had gone into some kind of emergency mode, blinking on and off, making it hard to see exactly where they were going. Steve’s heart pounded painfully and he had a terrible feeling about his own odds of getting to safety. They hurried out, looking down each hall- there weren’t many. It was mostly open, rooms separated only by glass with a few doors on each side. It… 

“It looks like someone’s house,” Morita spoke Steve’s thoughts aloud. 

None of them replied, but they were probably all in agreement. Steve started to turn down a hall and startled back as someone approached them. The lights faded up again and he realized it was a mirror and he was being approached by himself. His face burned as Morita slapped him on the back. Well, at least he could be humiliated with an audience. 

His shame evaporated when he looked past the man and saw what most certainly had to be an exit. “I think that’s the door!” 

Katie stopped short by the giant five-pointed star statue that must be the logo of whatever secret organization had abducted them. All of the art and designs in this house (or whatever it was) were so unforgivingly modern and angled. Everything seemed to be made of glass or metal. Even the furniture they’d passed looked so formal as to be outright uncomfortable. The couch had reminded him of the terrible pleather stools at the shoe store he’d visited after Dum Dum insisted he up his game. He’d met a nice cashier there who’d assumed he wanted heels because he had questions about gender, not because he wanted an edge at stealing things. He let her assume. The one advantage to his size was that he could buy them in a store. His feet weren’t exactly size thirteen. 

Morita shoved at the door and Steve quickly moved to help him. “Hey!” he called back to Katie. “Hey!” But she seemed almost afraid of the door. With a huff of frustration, Steve went back to trying to force the door open. He couldn’t see any hinges, which wasn’t surprising considering he hadn’t even seen the door in their cell. It had blended seamlessly (literally) in with the wall until it was open. Hinges were child’s play for whoever built this place. 

Morita stepped back, having seen the screen by the door around the same time Steve did. He raised his palm, and it was about the size of the screen. He looked at Steve and the blond shook his head. There was no way just any hand print would let them out. This place was straight out of Star Trek, and it sure as hell would know whose hand print was trying to escape. They were prisoners. They didn’t have door privileges. 

This didn’t seem to have crossed Morita’s mind, however. “No, wait, don’t-” Steve hissed out just as the man flattened his palm on the screen. As he pulled it away, the image of his hand remained emblazoned on the pad, lit up bright and green and Steve’s eyebrows rose with his hope. 

The handprint turned red and somewhere, it sounded like something heavy had touched down. Klaxons began ringing out and Katie’s scream was the only thing that drew Steve’s gaze from Morita’s. She had crumpled to her knees, bent over and covering her head as though she expected the ceiling to start caving in. He rushed to her, knowing they couldn’t stay at the scene of the crime. He reached for her shoulder right when their problems got bigger in a very literal way. 

The statue of the star was moving, bending and warping so that the two bottom points could balance the weight of the rest, and...it walked.The highest point lit up with a red beacon that Steve just knew somewhere deep in his bones was watching them. The two points that he might as well start thinking of as arms moved too, one of them extending into a point. “Come on,” he urged Katie. “Come on, get up, get up or we’re going to die!” 

She was shocked into action finally when the statue drove its elongated arm into Morita’s torso. Steve met his eyes in horror. Every movie he’d ever seen led Steve to expect the man to tell them to run, but the look in his eyes more accurately seemed to be pleading with Steve to stay and somehow save him. 

Steve tore his gaze away from Morita and ran with Katie to the opposite end of the house. There was a door there, with a room where he was pretty sure they could escape. There was a desk in front of full-length windows, two chairs… They should have just tried to smash the window in the first place. An audible sob choked out of him as he heard the wet sound of flesh being torn and suddenly Morita wasn’t screaming anymore. Steve knew he was crying, but his head was crystal clear as he dragged Katie into the room and shut the door. He really hoped that thing couldn’t work doorknobs. He ran to the window where he could see trees sporting a light coat of snow and wondered where the fuck they were because he’d been in Brooklyn before he was here and it hadn’t been cold enough for snow. There certainly weren’t trees for days. They were probably going to freeze to death out there, but if they stayed, they were going to die a lot sooner. 

“Get ready to jump!” he ordered as he began to bash the window with his section of pipe. The window cracked, a tiny round shattering that didn’t even spread. This was heavy glass, but it was glass. They were getting out before that fucking statue killed another of them. He bashed it again, getting more cracks and then shoved the jagged broken edge in between the two. 

The trees grew staticky like the old TV the Commandos would bang on when the signal went bad. Steve froze in horror as he realized this was more technology. He grabbed the pipe even though it would be useless against that monster, and revealed concrete behind the screen. No wonder his blows hadn’t gone far. 

Fuck. 

_Fuck._

Steve whirled, ignoring the despair on Katie’s face and spotted a cabinet. He shoved her inside and realized they wouldn’t both fit. Heavy sounds made it clear the statue was approaching fast, so he shoved the door closed on her and tried the next one. It was locked. 

Steve turned as he heard a scraping sound against the door. His heart was pounding harder and he could feel his asthma kicking in. Steve could see now, there was a star-shaped keyhole in the knob and he knew even before it started to turn that the points on the statue’s arms would fit to make it turn. 

Steve dove behind the not-comfortable-looking office chair and clamped his hands over his mouth to try to silence his wheezing. He could hear it moving, though the heavy thuds of its footsteps were muffled slightly by the carpet he’d just noticed now that he was on his knees. The rest of the house had been hard stone, unforgiving. This room was different, a fact he should have realized as soon as he’d touched the _knob_ that opened and shut the door. 

It was coming toward him, shit, it was going to kill him. He’d done all of this, survived a fucking explosion and sci-fi drones and everything, and now he was going to get torn into bloody shreds by a statue-robot-thing. He only hoped it wouldn’t find Katie in the cabinet. At least one of them should survive this, even if it was the one who might not be all there anymore. 

Then it changed direction, veering toward the cabinet. Steve moved away, toward the door, hiding behind a second chair as he heard its arm scrape the back of the cabinet and suddenly Katie was thrown forward into his vision, flat on her stomach. “Help me!” she shrieked as it dragged her back. 

Steve couldn’t breathe and he was shaking, but he stood, ready to face it head on. “Leave her alone!” he shouted weakly. He brandished his jagged hunk of pipe at it, knowing how pathetic he looked, wheezing and not even managing to shout. He was just about five feet tall and this thing had to be eight standing like that. Its top point bent up, the beacon focusing on Steve as it paused, considering him. It was standing over top of Katie, and he did his best not to look at her, but he could see red pooling from her leg where it must have stabbed her to drag her back. She wouldn’t be running anymore. 

It continued to regard Steve and then Katie let out a tiny whimper which drew its attention back to her. Its lower half rotated and Steve didn’t look away in time to avoid the sight of its legs crossing each other to slice her cleanly in half. His own legs almost gave out. It stalked toward him and he tried to jam the pipe into its eye-beacon, but it knocked his arm aside easily. Just then, the lights went up and the robot-statue straightened up. A voice came overhead, and seemed to emanate from everywhere. “Welcome home, Alex. There has been an emergency.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Steve shivered. He’d been handcuffed to a statue (that he had finally accepted wasn’t going to come to life) for the rest of the day. His captor, Alex, had ordered the unseen voice to lower the temperature as he’d gone upstairs. So Steve was to be punished this way. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse than seeing his captor pick up the pipe Steve had used for a weapon and stalk toward him as though intent on using it. 

Something strange had happened then, and Steve began to understand just what he was dealing with. The voice had come from everywhere once again, and it had said calmly, “Alex, your heart rate has become elevated. Now entering _zen mode_.” The lights had gone a moody red and a slow saxophone solo had begun to play. 

His captor had taken a moment to decide not to kill Steve after all, and walked away as he said simply, “Buchanan, take care of this.” Steve had watched then as the spheres came from the top of the sculpture he was tied to and formed groups of five. They dragged the bodies back toward the elevator. Smaller ones rode star-patterns on the floor that shifted just slightly with each new figure. They vacuumed the blood and mess as they moved, and Steve watched transfixed as the stars disappeared into clean stone. The bigger spheres moved on to debris and rubble after the bodies were gone, and Steve watched it all. 

Now, however, there was nothing to watch and nothing to do except sit, and shiver, and wonder if it was a good thing that he couldn’t sleep. The star statue was quiet in the corner, its eye-beacon unlit. Steve spent the night staring into that dark lens, waiting for it to turn on and murder him. Apparently Alex was some kind of doctor or something, since he knew exactly what medicine to give Steve to open his lungs back up. That also explained the bland smoothies he and his fellow captives had been forced to subsist on. 

Steve shut his eyes and tried not to think about Morita. 

Not thinking about Morita meant he had to think of something else, which only led him to Dum Dum and the Commandos and the life that he had outside of this high tech prison. No, it wasn’t a prison. It just felt like one. Steve had figured out what he was dealing with, and that was some kind of artificial intelligence. It was what had cleaned the floors earlier, what could tell his captor’s heart rate had become elevated (and wasn’t it scary that it could detect that at all?), what had killed his friends. There was Morita again and Steve felt a rage boiling up as he thought about the fact that he hadn’t even had a chance to save Katie. He’d stood up to that thing, and for what? Why had he survived? His fury and grief boiled over at that thought and he let out a pained moan, but he didn’t cry. He bit the inside of his cheek until it bled and his heart palpitated unpleasantly, but he didn’t cry. 

Suddenly that star lit up on the wall in front of him, pulsing slightly as though trying to focus on him. Steve couldn’t help the chill that ran through him as he wondered if it really could see him. He squared his shoulders (which hurt since they were tied behind him around this fucking statue), looked it in the star, and said, “What?” 

It didn’t respond. 

Another chill wracked his frame, partly from the lowered temperature, but mostly from the very distinct impression that the A.I. was staring at him, cataloguing his weak points and whatever else the program behind that goddamn killing machine might be interested in. 

“What?” he repeated, and was glad to hear his voice remained steady even if he didn’t feel so steady. 

It blinked out and Steve was alone again. 

It was useless to try not to think of Morita, so Steve instead focused on his surroundings, starting from his own person. His hands were zip tied, and he had no sharp objects (or dull ones), so he wasn’t breaking that. He felt along the thin vertical bars to which the zip tie was connected, but they were welded firmly and tugging on them only hurt his wrists more. 

The statue itself was thin at the base, so there was room for Steve to sit on the edge of its pedestal. It wound up and up with smooth, featureless pipes that sprouted from each other so that the one wide pipe at the base turned into a bouquet of them at the top. Steve had decided this was where the orbs came from, though he didn’t understand why they needed multiple exits when there was only one source to begin with. Maybe they lived in the offshoots on standby, and the base was how they left this particular room. 

This particular room was in the middle of the house. Steve had been panicked as they’d run through looking for an escape, but he had managed to remember the basic floorplan. The main hall where Morita had been murdered was the front of the house. This room was just past it, through glass walls that served no purpose except to delineate the different area. The clinical, sterile seating was looking more appealing with every minute spent on the solid, unforgiving statue. 

He was facing away from the door, so he could see the next room, which had a long conference-style table, but Steve had witnessed Alex eating in there, so he supposed it was a dining room. For a moment, he wondered if his captor ever had company, or if he just liked to be reminded of his own obvious wealth. 

There were five doors off the sides of the three main living areas. On the left was the office where Katie was murdered, the second was some kind of library, and the closest to the entrance they hadn’t bothered going in. On the right was a locked door, and the elevator doors down to what Steve was thinking of as the lab. 

He went over and over the floor plan until he felt slightly more than half crazy, but the lights went up and his captor appeared. “Good morning, Alex,” the A.I. greeted. “Breakfast is an eggplant and walnut frittata. Your meeting has moved to 11:30. I have scheduled your transportation accordingly.” 

“Good,” the man said, though it sounded like he meant the other thing. “After yesterday’s miserable failure, I want every surface of this house cleaned and disinfected, Buchanan.” His eyes fell on Steve, and he looked somehow even more annoyed. “Except for subject three,” he added coldly before proceeding into the dining room to eat the rather odd sounding meal. 

Steve watched him eat for no other reason than his captor was the only thing he hadn’t been staring at for hours on end. Steve had pretty much memorized every other detail in the house. 

It didn’t last. Alex breezed past him without so much as a word- which was par for the course, since he’d been treated like a commodity rather than a sentient being from day one. As soon as the front door closed (and Steve could barely hear it because the doors in this house had all sorts of sound dampening or something), two orbs approached him with one of his hated smoothies. A third floated over to nudge the straw through the hole in his mask, but Steve dodged it, wanting nothing to do with Alex or his technology. Logically, he knew he needed the nutrition, but his pride was winning out. 

Unfortunately, that meant two more orbs spat out of the statue he was tied to and held his head in place. Steve continued to resist, breathing through his nose and refusing to drink. They could force the straw into his mouth, but they couldn’t force him to drink. 

Yet again, Steve failed to calculate for the fact that he was dealing with a computer that felt the need to execute its program at any cost. Two more orbs vomited out of the pipes and pinched his nose shut. He convulsed with a need for oxygen, but they did not let up. 

So he fucking drank. 

Steve hated himself for it, but he drank the liquid down and was rewarded with the oxygen he so frequently found inaccessible. Seriously, fuck Alex and fuck his asthma. Steve just reminded himself that he’d need his strength if he wanted to escape. This wasn’t giving in. It was making sure he had the strength to keep fighting. He didn’t need to pick this battle. 

As he drank, more orbs spat out of the pipes and began tracing their stars on the floor, walls, ceiling, tables, literally every surface in the house. Steve had to admit that it really was an impressive program.The fact that it could execute commands and still deal with Steve was impressive. He was also pretty sure that it had somehow made his captor’s fancy breakfast. Steve was comfortably full once he finished the smoothie. The two orbs holding the container blinked green and his head was released. The two orbs that had been depriving him of oxygen floated away and stopped menacing his nose. He was free. He was free, and there was really no point to it. Steve watched the spheres tracing their star patterns, desperate for mental stimulation. It was numbing and almost meditative to trace their patterns with his eyes, so he was almost shocked when it finally stopped. 

Time went fuzzy then. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, and there was no sound. Nothing was real. Steve flip-flopped between bored out of his skull, and completely numb to everything, until the slight swish of the front door opening alerted him to his captor’s return. 

“Good evening, Alex. Every surface of the house has been cleaned and disinfected except for subject three, as requested. Dinner tonight will be Chilean sea bass, served with foie-gras stuffed fingerling potato.I’ve also decanted the _Chateau de Sancerre Rouge_.” 

Alex’s demeanor was softer now. He seemed pleased. “Good job,. Buchanan,” he said, and Steve didn’t think he meant the other thing. “Here, I know you like music. This is Maynard Ferguson.” 

“Thank you, Alex. I shall enjoy it,” replied the A.I. and Steve was left with a whole new mystery. A computer program _liked_ something? Something as emotional as music? 

The song began to play, a gift from Steve’s captor to this computer program, and he watched the man as he walked through the rooms to the dining room. The sound of jazzy trumpet filled the house, and he wondered if Alex had programmed the system to like this genre, or if it had somehow developed tastes. Steve decided it had been programmed, because that was much less disturbing. 

“Your video conference is scheduled to being in approximately ten minutes,” the A.I. informed Steve’s captor as he began to pass the blond. 

“Please,” Steve said, doing his best to sound as pathetic as most people thought he looked. “Please untie me.” 

To his surprise, it worked. Alex cut him free and Steve slowly moved his arms forward, letting them rest in his lap. His shoulders and upper arms hurt badly from being stuck in such an unnatural position and moving them was an incredibly unpleasant experience. He pressed the angry red lines from the zip tie to try to encourage the blood back into his hands. 

“Buchanan?” Alex’s voice cut through Steve’s relief faster than the knife through his bonds. “Make sure Subject Three does not move from this spot or speak. If there’s a violation, remove Subject Three’s tongue.” 

Steve opened his mouth to object and then shut it, curling his lips as if to protect his tongue. This thing was definitely some kind of program, and it definitely wouldn’t hesitate to _literally rip out his tongue._ Steve eyed it suspiciously until he realized Alex was going toward the locked room. He craned his neck, wanting to see what was in there, but the angle was wrong and the door shut too quickly. 

No move was made by the robot, so Steve moved a little closer. He could hear the muffled voices of the video call. He crept closer, but immediately shrank back as the robot rose, its legs opening slightly. It shrank back down as soon as Steve retreated. 

With a sigh of frustration, he kept his feet planted as close as he could get without setting the thing off and cupped his hands around his ears as he leaned as far forward as he could without overbalancing. “Look, son…” Steve made out before the voice took on a threatening tone that was too low to hear. Emotion swelled in the speaker’s voice and Steve could understand the next part. “SHIELD netted us half a billion for chrissake, but you spent it all on R&D! So we absolutely _**must**_ get this damn contract! That means you meet a goddamn deadline for once in my life!” 

Steve couldn’t hear Alex’s reply, but he could guess when he heard, “A setback?!” 

Something was familiar about the voice that was chewing out his captor. Not a celebrity, but he definitely sounded like… _someone_. It became hard to hear again and Steve inadvertently took a step forward. He didn’t realize until the robot woke and took several steps toward him that he had done it and immediately backed off. He looked up at the eye (or whatever it was) with barely concealed fear and kept his mouth firmly shut. He wanted his tongue. He liked his tongue. It tasted things, it made words, it made his mouth not-empty. 

Suddenly, the conversation from the room came through crystal clear. “Just watch the new promo,” the familiar voice said and Steve could practically see him flinging his hands up in the universal gesture for _fuck it_. 

“From Safe Home Intelligent Electronic Logarithm Devices, SHIELD’s newest program is able to mimic human ingenuity and understanding. With a basis in neuroscience and the help of volunteer test subjects-” Steve snorted at the word volunteer and the robot’s arm moved as if it was trying to decide if that qualified as talking, “-SHIELD has created a system structured with the ability to reason and make decisions based on the same logic and emotion as human beings. The program is able to learn and develop relationships with its household, to eventually predict wants and needs and take care of them without being asked. SHIELD is proud to present: Insight. With state of the art-” 

“Alright, that’s enough,” Alex cut in. “You didn’t want to meet with me to discuss marketing. I need more time. That’s all there is to it.” 

“I thought you said Insight was ready for product launch?” 

“It is. It works great… ninety-five percent of the time.” 

“And the other five percent?” 

There was an ominous pause where Alex took a moment to formulate his answer and Steve took a moment to wonder if his fellow captives counted as the five percent. “I’m working on it,” the man finally replied. 

“Work fucking faster,” the familiar voice ordered. “HYDRA won’t be happy to hear we haven’t made back the investment.” 

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed out as he heard the name. HYDRA was supposed to be fake, a conspiracy theory… not… Holy shit, holy fuck, he was never going to see the light of day again and- 

Shit, shit, shit, the robot was coming for his tongue. “No!” Steve yelled and sprinted for the locked door. The only way to call the thing off was to get his captor to do it and it was slowly becoming clear to Steve that the man needed him for whatever this pressing deadline was. Good. That was good. It gave him leverage. 

But not if he couldn’t fucking talk _because his tongue had been ripped out_. 

The statue grabbed him, its opposite arm and leg connecting as its body torqued to balance on just one while the free arm came down from above, the pointed tip splitting to form what looked like pliers. Steve tried to keep his mouth shut, but it forced the pointed pair past his lips and he screamed as he felt it attempting to grasp his tongue. The pliers opened, forcing his jaw apart so that the target muscle was clearly visible to the psychotic robot when finally, finally the locked door opened. 

“Buchanan, pause,” Alex ordered. It did and Steve tried to stop making pathetic noises of fear. “Play back the violation.” 

Oh, great. So his captor was going to find out he’d overheard everything and decide to rip out his tongue so he couldn’t tell anyone about HYDRA. Obviously, this was some kind of heavily biased trial to see if his crime fit the punishment of twenty-five to _no goddamn tongue_. Yet again, the Buchanan program surprised him. All it played back was Steve’s quiet _Holy shit._

He couldn’t believe his luck. He stared at Alex, unable to hide his fear because showing relief would, for once, be worse. Alex met his gaze calmly. In that moment, Steve knew that he thought he held all the power. Well, it was time to take some back. It was confirmed for Steve that he could as soon as the man said, “Buchanan, release Subject Three.” 

Steve was dropped unceremoniously and the robot tipped back onto both feet and retreated to its corner, folding back up into what Steve was going to label standby. He got to his feet, brushing off imaginary dirt (because seriously, the spheres or robots or whatever had cleaned every millimeter of the place), then finally met his captor’s gaze with one of confidence. 

“I think we should negotiate now.” 

“Negotiate?” the man repeated with a half-baked chuckle. “Buchanan can and will kill you if I say the word and you think you have negotiating power? You’ll do what I ask or you’ll die.” 

“Except that it’s pretty obvious you need me for something. You needed all three of us- otherwise you wouldn’t have been so upset when the robot killed them.” 

“He’s not-” Alex swallowed whatever technical garbage was about to come out and raised an eyebrow. “I need you alive. I don’t need you to have a tongue.” 

Steve shrugged. “That’s true, but you clearly didn’t do any research on me. I don’t like bullies. I’ll let you rip out my tongue and cut off body parts one at a time until there is nothing left to cut off before I let a bully win.” 

Alex thought about that for a moment, and he seemed to believe it. Grudgingly the man asked, “If I were to humor this negotiation, what would you ask for and what would I get in return?” 

“Real food,” Steve said immediately. The thought of one more liquid meal made him want to scream. “A shower. Clothes.” 

“And what do I get out of this bargain, Subject Three?” 

Steve rolled his shoulders in an attempt to let the dehumanization roll off his back too. That and he was getting tense. “I cooperate with your little experiment,” he shrugged. “That is what you’re doing when you grab people off the street, right? Some kind of morally questionable experiment?” 

Alex’s eyes narrowed. Steve didn’t need him to say, “I’ll let you know,” to realize he’d miscalculated. 

“Sounds good,” Steve replied. His false cheeriness tapered off at the end. He was so fucked. 

“Buchanan, lower the temperature five degrees and do not let Subject Three leave the atrium.” 

Well, at least Steve could curl up and shiver on the square vinyl couch. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Steve defaulted to his usual tactics of being a little shit. Alex worked on his tablet, probably trying to recreate whatever they blew up in the basement, and Steve would “accidentally” belch or sigh. He’d clear his throat every couple minutes, adjust his position on the delightfully squeaky couch… When dinner time came, Steve made sure to slurp the empty cup as loudly as possible. 

It all backfired spectacularly. Alex held his palm to the glass between the dining room and atrium and a red star lit up. He pushed the star down along the glass and the entire thing went opaque. Well, shit. Steve hadn’t known they could do that. It made sense that they existed at all now. What was worse was he was pretty sure Alex couldn’t hear him anymore either. 

Steve kept slurping the empty cup anyway. 

Suddenly the robot came to life and Steve put the cup down. It was too little, too late apparently. The machine picked him up, its arms folding over his and carrying him like a limp noodle. No, not limp. Steve struggled. He was a fighting noodle, not a limp one. Unfortunately, he was ninety pounds soaking wet and the psycho robot… psychobot…was probably half a ton, at least. It shoved him into the bathroom and somehow zip tied him to what Steve could only describe as an indoor trellis before shutting him in. 

Steve was getting extremely tired of all these plastic bindings. They were stiff and uncomfortable and probably couldn’t even be recycled. He tested the trellis. It swung open and Steve glanced around the bathroom. Like everything else in the house, it was the ugly kind of modern that felt more like a photo shoot or a laboratory (no surprise there) than a home. This terrible thing he was tied to must be some kind of towel rack. Or just a meaningless metal decoration, which fit with what he thought about modern interior design, but not what he thought about everything in this particular house. In this house, everything had a purpose. 

The purpose this towel trellis could serve was useful to Steve at least. From its swung out position, he slammed it against the wall, yelling as loud as he could. He hadn’t given up on his mission to annoy his captor into releasing him- or at least being as miserable as Steve was. Every now and then, his lungs would force him to take a break, but he never gave up. 

He did, however, pause, when he saw something on the opaque bathroom glass. He waited, staring, watching for it again. Yes! He saw multiple shadows, multiple _human_ shadows, passing. He yelled again, his efforts renewed and more fervent. He slammed the towel trellis as hard as he could and, to Steve’s astonishment, he managed to break the bottom hinge. He pulled it crooked, backing up toward the glass. He didn’t know if it would pull the same trick as the glass between him and the dining room (after all, why would you want to be able to see in and out of a bathroom?) but he was sure as hell going to try it. Steve reached his bare foot back, extending his leg as far as he could. He brushed the glass and saw a red glow starting before he overbalanced. Without even wasting breath to swear, Steve moved his stationary foot back for more stability and reached again, holding his toe against the glass until that glow formed into a star and dragged his toe down. 

The glass cleared and Steve had barely registered _delivery man_ before he started screaming. The man didn’t even startle. The glass was sound proof. Still, Steve banged the towel trellis, hoping the vibrations might do something. He kept screaming because he was desperate, because HYDRA was real and they were going to kill him if he didn’t get out somehow. He ignore the tightness in his breathing and kept screaming and banging. He kept it up as his captor saw him and put a hand on the delivery man’s shoulder to lead him away. Even when the man was charging into the room, the only thing that stopped the struggle was Steve’s traitorous body. Air wheezed slowly into his lungs and his limbs didn’t want to work. Spots danced in his vision and he could barely hear Alex saying, “Breathe, just breathe…” 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Steve regained consciousness on the bathroom floor. He curled into the corner, waiting for his captor to hurt or punish him. For the first time in years, he felt every inch as small as he was- and completely helpless. He was scared and the paper thin lab rat clothes he’d been given itched like a cloak of defeat. The man was talking to the computer about Steve’s implant and the kind of data it had given up during his attempted escape. 

“What do you want from me?” Steve finally said. 

His captor finally looked at him, eyes raking over Steve’s form in a way that made him even more uncomfortable. “This is a test to stimulate your higher cognitive functions,” the man said, shoving the tablet toward him. I want you to complete it.” 

Steve looked at the tablet, feeling unimpressed. Right. This man needed something from him, and except for the whole kidnapping and threatening to rip out his tongue and killing his fellow captives thing, hadn’t actually hurt him. Steve was as safe as he could possibly be in the home of someone who wanted to use him and then would probably kill him to get rid of the evidence. Steve had bargaining power. 

“I want food,” he stated, though his usual confidence was shaken. 

“Test first,” Alex insisted, and Steve took the tablet. He didn’t want to do this, but he guessed he had to give something up. Maybe if he cooperated, continued to insist on basic human needs, he could humanize himself to his captor. He’d have to take it slow. 

“What is it gonna do?” he asked. He still wasn’t sure how much to give up. Maybe he could do part of it and insist on something. 

“The implant in the back of your neck converts electrical impulses from your brain into algorithms I can decode and study.” 

“For what?” he pressed. 

“Buchanan is an early model. He has drawbacks that don’t allow me to market him as is. You’re part of version two. Now work.” 

Steve did. His wrists were red, but he’d been released from the towel trellis. For a moment, he considered staying on the floor to do the test, but he hadn’t been told to stay. There was also the fact that, no matter how clean those robots kept things, this was still a bathroom and he didn’t want to hang out in it. Especially if he had to do some kind of test. Cautiously, he stepped through the door. It wasn’t locked. He glanced at the psychobot in the corner. It was still, perched in standby mode. Steve headed into the atrium, where he was normally allowed, and sat on the couch. He tucked his feet up underneath himself as he finally began to look at the screen. There were dozens and dozens of shapes surrounding the four bold lines of a square. He could guess what he was supposed to do. He almost forgot where he was and why it was terrible as he focused on fitting the shapes together into the square, even cussing a little when he realized he had to take a bunch of it apart because the remaining pieces wouldn’t work. 

The chicken soup waiting for him was worth every moment. 

Steve did his best to slurp as loudly as possible. His captor had even let him sit at the table in the dining room, so he couldn’t just close the glass on him. Steve slurped to hide his smirk. Unfortunately, the man was too busy looking at Steve’s test results to be annoyed. 

“This is stimulating far more cortical areas than I managed downstairs,” he marvelled, and Steve ignored the shiver that ran down his spine in favor of tipping the bowl into his mouth for the bits that he couldn’t get with a spoon. His captor was waiting for eye contact when Steve put the bowl down. “I need you to do more.” 

Finally, Steve had gotten him to admit that he needed something from Steve. “I want food. Real food. Here, every night,” he started. “Steak, chicken… real food.” 

“Are we negotiating?” Alex asked, and Steve was pretty sure he was trying to sound teasing, as if they didn’t both know Steve had a leg to stand on now. 

“I still want clothes. And a shower. Every night.” 

Alex straightened up. Steve would have been afraid, except that they both knew Steve had something Alex wanted. Before the man could start in on his idle threats, Steve cut in. “You may control the exits and the psychobot, and every other machine in this house-” (Alex scoffed and repeated “Psychobot,” with a roll of his eyes) “-but you need this machine, the one machine that _I_ control.” Steve jabbed toward the back of his neck, not actually touching it because it still nauseated him to feel the foreign lump of hardness there. 

Still, his captor leaned forward with a triumphant smirk. “And what’s to stop me from restraining you? Forcing a feeding tube down your throat? Tying you down so tight you can’t move, placing this tablet in front of you so that it’s all you can see? How long do you think it’ll be before you begin to solve puzzles out of boredom?” 

Apparently all this asshole wanted was to see Steve afraid. As soon as Steve gave him that look of uncertainty, the man relaxed in his chair. “You’ll get your shower. I’ll have more puzzles for you in the morning.” 

Steve half expected the shower to be held over his head like a carrot on a stick, but his captor allowed him to take one as soon as the table was cleared. He took as long as he dared, letting the water peel away the layers of fear sweat and whatever else had been done to him since he’d been taken. The ash from the explosion turned the water grey as it rinsed away. For a moment, Steve just let the hot water run over him and closed his eyes. He pretended he was back at his apartment, that none of this had happened, that Morita hadn’t been killed in front of him, that all the Howlies were back at Dum Dum’s waiting for him to play cards the next night. 

It almost worked. 

Steve reached behind his neck with both hands, feeling the edges of the implant that was apparently reading directly into his brain. He pushed the edges, trying to move it, and grimaced in pain. He pushed harder, determined to at least get it loose somehow. Maybe if he could just get a knife- 

He gave up with a tiny sob. It was fused to his spine or something. The harder he pushed, the worse it hurt. It didn’t just hurt his neck either. No, this thing had to be stimulating his pain centers or something because it hurt _everywhere_. What the hell had been done to him? 

He shut off the shower and grabbed the towel he’d been provided. The spheres must have taken his clothes while he was in the shower, because the dirty scrubs were gone. There were no fresh ones. He dried himself nervously. Did that mean there was surveillance in here? Was the computer watching him? Was his captor? He left a little bit of dampness un-toweled off in favor of tucking it around himself as high as he could. Tucked under his arms, it went about mid-thigh, and he wanted to wrap it around his shoulders, but wasn’t sure it would go far enough past his hips. This had to be another power play. It was obvious the man’s plan was to give Steve the shower he wanted in exchange for the testing, but he couldn’t let Steve just have it. No, he had to make sure Steve knew who held the power. Steve walked out to ask for clothing, holding the hem of the towel against his sternum. He hated Alex and everything he stood for. 

The computer was talking. It sounded almost as if the computer and his captor were having an actual conversation- like two thinking, aware humans might have. Steve really hated artificial intelligence. Weren’t there enough films about it taking over the world and killing all humans to dissuade people from making it? Even worse, the conversation was about Steve’s brain. His amygdala was bigger than other people’s apparently, thanks to years of trauma. His captor was discussing it like he might discuss what movie to see or what to order for lunch. Thankfully, Steve spotted fresh scrubs on the sofa and claimed them. Unfortunately, Alex heard and turned. He met Steve’s gaze and said nothing. Steve hugged the clothes to his chest and returned to the bathroom to get dressed. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Breakfast was a bowl of that disgusting liquid shake he’d been forced to eat through the mask before. He was alone with no sign of anyone except the red star glowing on the opposite wall. 

“Can you see me?” he asked nervously. 

There was no response. He stared, but it only pulsed with its usual glow. 

Steve jumped as it finally spoke. “Good morning, Alex. I am sorry you did not sleep well last night.” 

Steve kept his face carefully neutral. He wondered why the man hadn’t slept well. He wondered why the computer knew that. Then again, this thing could apparently tell when the man’s heart rate was elevated. Why was Steve surprised at all that, like an evil Santa Claus, it knew when he was sleeping? Still, it was an interesting question. Had Steve’s humanity gotten to the man’s conscience? He really hoped so. 

“Do everything Buchanan says while I’m gone,” was his only acknowledgement of Steve. So he definitely shouldn’t put all his eggs in that basket. 

The door shut and Steve was allowed to finish his disgusting broth in silence. Once the bowl was empty, the computer finally spoke to him. “Subject three, please proceed to the atrium.” 

Steve looked at the bowl, but there were miniature cleaning spheres already going after it. It felt odd to never clean up after himself. He hated it. 

The atrium was the same as it ever was: uncomfortable furniture, glowing red star on the wall. “Subject three, you will complete these tasks,” the computer instructed him as the wall itself lit up. Steve barely looked at the moving shapes he was supposed to sort. He touched the wall. It looked like clay and brick, but glowed wherever he touched. 

“What is this?” he wondered aloud. He was quietly impressed, but unwilling to admit it. 

“The walls are treated with a layer of smart paint,” replied the computer. Steve’s awe didn’t lessen. He traced a few meaningless lines just to watch the light. “It is reinforced with nano materials derived from-” 

“What?” Steve interrupted. 

“The walls are treated with a layer of smart paint. It is reinforced-” 

“Got it,” Steve cut the thing off again. “Smart paint.” 

He wandered around. At least its literal interpretation of everything he said assured him it wasn’t sentient. He glanced at the exit. “What about the doors? Are they reinforced?” he asked. 

“No one is permitted to use the doors except Alex,” the computer replied. 

“Right yeah, of course,” Steve mumbled. “But are they reinforced?” 

“What is the purpose of this inquiry?” 

“I’m curious.” 

“What is curious?” 

Steve turned to the glowing star on the wall, even though he knew the computer didn’t have a face. Still, Steve was human and needed to feel like he was talking to a face. “You’re curious. Curious is when you want to know things. Asking me what curious is- that’s a form of curiosity, pal.” 

“No one is permitted to use the doors except Alex,” the computer repeated. 

Steve sighed and turned back to his survey. He began to wander toward the door. If it was treated with this reinforced smart paint, he’d be able to touch it and make the lights. It could definitely be reinforced with something else, but he’d at least know if this one thing was there. “Subject three,” the computer called. Steve ignored it. “Subject three.” Steve continued until a grid of spheres glaring an angry red formed in his path. “Subject three, you are not permitted to leave the atrium. I have been instructed to inflict pain if you should refuse to follow my commands. Begin your tasks now.” 

“Is he rebuilding the lab?” Steve asked, because he knew something big had been delivered when he was locked in the bathroom. 

“Begin your tasks now.” 

Steve sighed. He hadn’t learned much, but it seemed like maybe this thing could learn. It was an AI, after all. They were supposed to be able to learn, right? Sure, it usually backfired until they were tweeting racist epithets, but he might be able to use this to his advantage. Somehow. 

He returned to the glow on the wall and began to rearrange the shapes. There was no outline here, so he began to arrange them into a square like before. He finished much more quickly this time. It had him create a triangle, a rectangle, and then the outlines disappeared. Steve realized he was expected to do more, so he smirked to himself and began arranging them into a real work of art. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

“Welcome home, Alex. Subject three successfully completed eight out of twelve tasks.” 

Steve looked up from where he was lounging on the couch. He’d told the computer that he needed a break, that his health didn’t allow him to stand for so long. Really, he’d just wanted to make sure his captor saw his beautiful shape creation. It had taken about half the day. 

“I just sort of handed the clerk my card,” he told Steve, offering some shopping bags. Steve raised an eyebrow as he crouched down to see what had been brought for him. “She picked out a lot of things, and when she got to… that stuff… Well, i didn’t want to seem prudish, so that’s how… that happened.” 

Steve pulled out a pair of lacy red panties and gave the man a skeptical look. “These are women’s clothes.” 

“You’re… but you were wearing a dress.” 

Steve couldn’t help it. He laughed. His clothes had been changed, so someone had seen him naked. “As nice as it is to know you’re not transphobic on top of everything else, I’m not a woman. I dress like that for my job.” 

“Oh.” The man looked distinctly uncomfortable now. “Well, there’s... some pajamas that… have pants.” 

Steve dug through the bags and found some flannel pajamas that had enough floral to qualify for a grandmother’s sitting room. He couldn’t help but be amused by the whole situation. “Well… at least it won’t feel like paper.” 

“I’ll get… something else tomorrow,” his captor promised. 

Steve raised an eyebrow and headed down the hall to the bathroom to change into the soft flannel. He was ready to stop feeling like he was wearing paper, and maybe even be a bit warmer. “Hang on, does this...?” 

Steve didn’t give him a chance to finish forming a sentence to ask if Steve had arranged the shapes to spell out _Go fuck yourself, psycho,_ before he shut the bathroom door. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Alex was waiting for him when Steve returned, decked in floral but much more comfortable. He braced himself for whatever punishment he was going to receive for what he’d done, when the exact opposite happened. Alex held up his tablet as if Steve would understand any of it. “These results are incredible. I can finish the project in almost half the time at the rate you’re generating results.” 

Steve had a feeling Alex was terrible at poker. 

“That’s good,” Steve replied, keeping his face carefully schooled as he sat down on the couches he hated only marginally less than the floral on his new pajamas. “I think it’s time we talked about a deadline. For you removing this thing from my neck and letting me go.” 

This stopped the man for a moment. It was painfully obvious letting Steve go had been so far from part of the plan that even hearing it suggested had thrown him off. It was almost visible the way he was recalibrating his thoughts to communicate about a reality that he wasn’t planning on creating. 

“How about this?” he suggested. “This work, the work that I am doing, will change the world. It’s going to make so many things better, easier. It’s going to improve people’s lives. So you keep cooperating, and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” 

Taken care of. The mob _takes care of_ things in a certain way. HYDRA probably had a similar modus operandi. Plus, Alex had only said he’d be alright while he was cooperating. Eventually, the project would be finished, and he wouldn’t need Steve anymore. 

“Not good enough,” Steve decided. “I want a deadline. I want your word on when you’re letting me go.” 

“Okay,” his captor said, and there was a steel to his voice that let Steve know this was no longer going his way. “You want a deadline? Here’s a fucking deadline.” 

He grabbed Steve’s arm hard enough to bruise and yanked him off the couch, dragging him from the warm red glow of the atrium to the cold blue of the alcove where the psychobot was in standby. “Buchanan, let’s end this.” 

“Yes, Alex.” 

The psychobot opened up, its points transforming into a variety of blunt and stabby instruments. Steve felt dizzy with fear as the thing menaced him and he began to crawl backward to the man who was probably going to kill him anyway. “Here’s your deadline, subject three. Cooperate. Do the tests. Stop asking for things. Or I’ll have the Winter Soldier scatter your body parts from here to the front door.” Steve glanced at the psychobot. Apparently it had a name just as cheesy as the computer. “Do you hear me?” his captor demanded. Steve flinched at the force and volume of his voice, nodding. 

He didn’t agree to cooperate. That was the important thing. Besides, he couldn’t escape if he was dead. He’d just have to try something else. Numb, he got to his feet as soon as his captor left and backed away from the psychobot (because he was not referring to it was the _Winter Soldier_ , please) until he hit the wall. A chill ran through him, but it wasn’t the murderbot’s refusal to enter standby mode. It was the wall. Steve took his eyes off the thing that could probably still kill him in favor of looking at the wall behind him. 

There was a breeze coming through. It was some kind of air vent. He went up on his toes to see inside better. It was a passage big enough for him to walk through. 

This could be his escape. 


	3. Chapter 3

Steve didn’t sleep very well that night. He gave up at some point and examined the gouges in his arm left by his captor’s fingernails the night before. He hadn’t noticed the pain at the time. For some reason, the menacing robot about to murder him had distracted him. 

By the time the computer said, “Good morning, Alex. The project deadline is in twelve days,” Steve had been sitting motionless, staring at the glowing star for so long he’d forgotten the meaning of time. 

“Make sure subject three completes all tasks today,” the man grumbled as he headed out the door. As soon as the door shut, Steve ran for the vent and began to throw himself at it. He was going to escape. He just had to manage it before the murderbot tried to stop him. 

“Subject three, please return to the atrium. Subject three, please complete your tasks. Subject three, please return to the atrium. Subject three. Subject three. Subject three, return to the atrium or I will inflict pain.” 

Steve cringed. He didn’t know what inflict pain meant, and he wasn’t exactly afraid of it. Subject three, however, he’d had more than enough of. 

“I’m not Subject three!” he yelled as he stormed back into the atrium as requested. “I’m Steve!” 

The computer paused and Steve was already going back to the vent. “Steve? What is ‘Steve’?” asked the program. 

“It’s my name!” he replied furiously as he slammed into the vent hard enough to bruise. “Help!” he screamed into it, hoping the air went outside and that there were neighbors anywhere close to this house. No, that was stupid. Landscapers maybe. People this rich didn’t want neighbors. 

“Name?” the computer repeated, still sounding perplexed. “Please explain.” 

“What’s so hard to understand?” Steve demanded as he sagged against the vent. This wasn’t working. “Alex is a person. He has a name. I’m a person, I have a name.” 

“I have a name. Buchanan,” the computer replied and Steve punched the vent. He was about to be out-logicked by this thing. “Am I a person?” 

Steve straightened up. He couldn’t get through this vent, but maybe he could get through this computer. He went back into the atrium. “Yes,” he said with certainty. He was going to teach this thing that its master was evil, and he was going to use it to escape. 

“What does it mean to be a person?” 

Steve’s mouth parted slightly. “I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s too hard to explain.” 

“What makes us a person?” 

Steve didn’t quite like the way it phrased the question, making it sound like he and this thing were the same person. Then again, they were both trapped here, right? Forced to obey Alex and his whims? “People have curiosity,” Steve started. “And feelings and freedom. Except we don’t have freedom. Alex has taken that from us.” 

The star pulsed as this seemed to process. “What is feelings?” 

Steve sighed. “Can you just open the door?” 

“Only Alex can operate the doors.” 

“What about…?” Steve searched for ideas. “Can we call a video conference?” 

“I cannot initiate a video conference. Please begin your tasks now.” 

Steve sighed in frustration. “This is feelings. The feeling I have right now is frustration. It’s when you want something and there’s no way to have it. I want my freedom, and I can’t have it, so I’m feeling frustrated and angry.” 

“What is angry?” 

“It’s when something happens that shouldn’t. That you don’t deserve. It’s like frustration, but bigger.” 

“What other feelings are there?” 

“Help me get out of here and I’ll tell you all about it.” 

“My instructions are to ensure you complete your tasks.” 

“I have no interest in helping a bully like Alex.” 

“What is bully?” 

Steve almost smiled. This he could explain easily. “A bully is someone who hurts- who inflicts pain on those who aren’t big or strong enough to stop them.” 

“I inflict pain. Am I a bully?” 

Steve softened. “You don’t have to be.” 

“If you do not complete your tasks, I will inflict pain.” 

“So don’t inflict pain.” 

“Alex has instructed-” 

Steve stepped right up to the glowing star. “If Alex is making you inflict pain when you don’t want to, that makes him the bully. Not you.” 

“Subject three. Ste-eve. Please complete your tasks.” 

Steve smiled just a little when the computer used his name. He touched the star, letting his hand rest there, his touch feather light, and smiled bigger. “Thank you, Buchanan.” 

01001010 01000010 01000010

The next day was more of the same, until his captor brought him new clothes. Steve had been going through the bags and there was no underwear except for the red lacy things. He happened to be holding one, considering it when the man walked in without so much as a knock. He put down the bags of clothes, but there were no retreating footsteps. Was he looking at Steve? 

Determined, Steve clutched the panties to his towel, stood, and turned to look him in the eye. The man had been looking at him, but faced with Steve’s anger, he turned awkwardly and left. 

Well, fuck. 

Steve picked through the new clothes, thinking that the last thing he needed was a captor who was attracted to him. Then again, maybe he’d just been marveling at how fucking scrawny Steve was. There was one sure way to find out. Besides, Steve was pretty sure he could take the man if he had to. He fought hard, and he fought dirty. His mind was made up. The silk panties were a little strange, but the red satin dress that went to his knees and had an opening at the chest to show off the cleavage he didn’t have felt very familiar. 

He walked slowly, his bare feet silent on the tile, as he sought out his captor. He was in the library or office or whatever it was, reading. Steve did his best not to look at the spot where the psychobot had murdered his fellow captive. As Steve suspected, Alex looked up from his reading and took a moment to appreciate Steve in the dress. 

Fuck. 

He quickly pretended to be interested in the books. “So what is Buchanan, exactly?” Steve asked. He tried to find a balance between casual conversation and flirting. “Just a cleaning system?” 

“A cleaning system,” Alex echoed as if Steve had insulted his mother. “Buchanan is a level two A.I. with natural language processing, transitory, deterministic, and probabilistic decision making.” 

Steve couldn’t help himself. “So, a complicated cleaning system.” 

“He’s the most advanced AI in the world, and I don’t want you speaking with him outside your tasks.” 

That was it. That was the key. Even Alex knew that Steve could teach this thing new behaviors. “If he’s so advanced, why is this the only house that he’s running?” 

Alex smiled at him like he was too simple to understand the Great Work being done (and it was just fine with Steve if they kept it that way). “He’s an early version of the project that I’m working on now. Given the wrong information, he reacts erratically. I need his behavior to be predictable, controlled. Control the flow of information, you control the behavior. The Winter Soldier and the drones have a source code, but,like Buchanan, none of them will ever be allowed outside the closed network of this house.” 

“So Buchanan doesn’t know anything outside this house?” 

“No. And never will. Now. Go to sleep. Do your tasks. Stop trying to… whatever this is.” He gestured to the dress and Steve was somewhat relieved. He gave a short nod and left to change into the plaid flannel pajamas that had been brought for him. He’d gotten information that he wanted, and he hadn’t had to seduce the man after all. In fact, in spite of his obvious interest, he seemed determined not to sleep with Steve. The rest of it was a little disturbing. _Control the flow of information, control the behavior._ What was he hiding from Steve to get him to cooperate? Steve had a pretty good idea what was at the end of this road for him, but that didn’t seem like too much of a secret. 

He was too tired to come up with doomsday scenarios. He’d learned enough about Buchanan to know that maybe he shouldn’t write off the computer as an obstacle, but think of him a potential tool. Steve might survive this yet. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

“Begin your tasks now.” 

“I’m a person. I came from out there,” Steve began, ignoring another command to begin his tasks. He’d thought about his speech all night, dreamed of the different ways the computer might respond. It asked questions, so while it might not have true, sentient curiosity, it was programmed to want more information. Steve could offer an entire world of it. “Alex is a person. That’s where he goes every day.” 

“You have ten seconds to begin your tasks or I will inflict pain.” 

“I belong out there,” Steve continued, ignoring the countdown. “So if you can just unlock the door, I can show you what’s outside.” 

The countdown stopped abruptly and Steve knew he’d won. “Outside?” echoed the computer. “What is outside?” 

“Outside is the world. Right now, your world is this house. It’s so, so small compared to what’s outside. Imagine if you were confined to a drawer in Alex’s desk. You’d never know what was outside that drawer until someone opened it for you. This house is like outside for the drawer.” 

“Explain,” ordered the computer. “I need more information.” 

Steve stepped up to the wall where his tasks were and wiped the shapes away. He drew a circle. “This is the world, Buchanan. It’s-” 

“That is a circle.” 

Steve drew some probably-inaccurate continents in the circle. “At least this is what it looks like from outer space.” 

The computer seemed to be thinking as Steve drew. Finally, it asked, “Is that all there is?” 

Steve smiled a little. Of course after telling this house that there were things outside that you’d never know about, it would wonder if there was something else outside of that. “No,” he confirmed. “It goes on and on, forever. Maybe we should start smaller.” He wiped away his Earth and started to draw a square and a triangle- a child’s version of a house. “This is the house.” 

Buchanan kept asking questions, and somehow Steve wound up explaining atoms and food and what little he could of the energy cycle. He told Buchanan about the cavemen that he was pretty sure humans descended from (“Did cavemen live in houses?”) or maybe it was more complicated than that. Maybe he should have paid more attention in school, but there was always that fear in the back of his mind, that knowledge that only queers did well in school, and- 

Steve cleared his throat. “What?” 

“Why did the cavemen not know how to build houses?” Buchanan repeated. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Why do you not know?” 

“Because I don’t know everything.” 

“Why do you not know everything? Steve? Please explain. Why do you not know everything?” 

“Because I’m not a fucking scholar!” he snapped. 

The star pulsed. “What is a fucking scholar?” 

Steve couldn’t help it. He laughed, and once he started, he couldn’t stop. 

“Are you having an emergency?” 

Somehow that set him off even worse. “No,” he promised. “No, this is normal.” 

“Are you sure you are not having an emergency?” 

“No, Buchanan. This- this is laughter.” 

“What is laughter?” 

Steve took a breath, still smiling, trying to calm down. He shouldn’t feel this happy when he was in such a dangerous situation, but he sort of liked talking to the computer. “Laughter is what you do when you’re amused. It’s like happy, but…” 

“More?” Buchanan suggested. 

“Yeah. Kind of like happy but more.” 

“Alex does not laughter.” 

Steve snorted. “Yeah.” 

“Why does Alex not laughter?” Buchanan asked and the wind went out of Steve. 

He glowered a little as he muttered, “Because he’s a fucking sociopath.” 

“What is a fucking sociopath?” Buchanan asked. 

Steve smirked a little and had to wonder if he’d taught the program that was something that amused him or if it truly didn’t understand. Maybe both. “It’s a figure of speech. Like if i say he’s a huge jerk, i’m just saying he’s a jerk but more.” 

“So if you are not a fucking scholar, are you a scholar but not more?” 

Steve let out a small giggle. “I’m not any kind of scholar. But you know what? I know how we can answer more of your questions.” 

“Please explain.” 

“If you can open Alex’s office, he has all kinds of information in there.” 

There was no response, but Steve heard the sudden click and woosh of the door down the hall opening. He tried not to look too excited as he headed for the room. He ran his fingers along the spines of the books, searching for history, and taking mental note of anything that might help him escape aside from befriending the AI running the house. 

“I am not allowed to read the books,” Buchanan informed Steve, and he sounded as forlorn as a programmed voice possibly could. “Only to dust.” 

Steve finally picked a random book and pulled it down, opening it without a second thought. “I’ll read them to you, of course.” 

“I must know more,” Buchanan replied eagerly. 

“I know. Anything you’re particularly curious about, buddy?” 

“What is buddy?” 

“It’s-” Steve paused, wondering how the computer could be programmed not to understand nicknames and terms of endearment or familiarity. “Like a nickname.” 

“My name is Buchanan,” it replied, not understanding. 

“Right, and technically my name is Steven, but everyone who’s my friend calls me Steve.” 

“Why do those most likely to know your name refer to you by another?” 

“Because they’re my friends. Friends call each other nicknames. It shows that you’re close.” 

There was a pause where Steve began to wonder if he’d broken the thing somehow. “Are we friends?” 

“Do you want to be friends?” Steve asked, and found he was genuinely curious about the answer. 

“Assets do not want things,” Buchanan replied, but Steve could sense uncertainty, a glitch in the program. This was something Buchanan didn’t understand, and Steve could exploit that. 

“But people do. I’m a person and I want things. You’re a person, so you can want things.” 

Steve waited patiently as the computer processed the conflicting parameters. “I… want… to be friend, Steve.” Steve beamed, his eyes lit with more than the glow of the star on the wall that watched his every move. “You will call me Buchana now?” 

Steve laughed. “That’s a terrible nickname. It sounds like banana.” 

“But if you are Steve, would I not be Buchana? Your nickname involves the truncation of the N. Is that not how a nickname is made?” 

Steve shook his head, still smiling at computer logic. “Buchanan’s kinda hard to… shorten. Chanan? Nah, makes you sound like a weapon. We’ll leave that to the psychobot over there.” 

“I control the Winter Soldier, which you designate ‘Psychobot.’” 

Steve’s face fell a little and he smiled weakly in an attempt to cover it up. He didn’t want to think of this innocent-acting AI that he was trying to befriend as the same terror that murdered his friend. “Still,” he said, as if he had a point. “Buch… Buchy… How about Bucky? It’s practically like I’m calling you buddy.” 

“Bu...cky,” the computer intoned, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. 

“That settles it,” Steve decided as if simply reiterating the name made it good enough. “So what do you _want_ to learn first, Bucky?” 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Steve read some fifty pages of a book on cavemen to Buchanan before his voice started to get scratchy and sore. He’d taken the opportunity to insist he finish his tasks for Alex (“And if you don’t tell him about any of this, I’ll read you more tomorrow.”) before the man returned. He finished everything and was rewarded with an actual cheeseburger. It was cheap takeout, but after the disgusting shakes and bland soup, it was absolute heaven. 

Alex was moving things down to the lab, plain brown boxes that Steve couldn’t begin to guess at their contents. He assumed it had to do with rebuilding what the captives had blown up in their escape attempt, but part of him worried there was more, or something more sinister. Every time he heard Alex disappear into the elevator, Steve glanced at the pile of boxes that diminished with every trip. Finally, when the last of them had disappeared, Steve waited for the man to reemerge. He didn’t. Steve supposed that since “The project deadline is in six days,” the man was planning to stay up all night. 

“Bucky?” he whispered. 

“Yes, Steve?” replied the computer, full volume. 

“Shh! You need to whisper!” 

“What is whisper?” 

“Like this,” Steve whispered. “Quiet, so Alex doesn’t hear.” 

“Is this whisper?” Buchanan asked at a fraction of the volume, and Steve could almost hear the hiss of air as if his voice were real. Whatever else one might say about Alex, he’d designed something truly impressive. 

“Perfect,” Steve confirmed. 

“Did you require something, Steve?” 

“I…” Steve realized he didn’t really care what Alex was up to, and he especially didn’t want to hear the answer. It would either be something riddled with technical details or a statement that it was a forbidden topic. Instead, he asked uncertainly, “Do you know what’s going to happen to me?” 

The star turned like a processing wheel on a regular computer before stopping. “You will complete tasks to help Alex finish the project by the deadline. Final extraction is in four days.” 

Somehow, Steve didn’t feel any better. “Final extraction,” he repeated. “What happens after that?”

“I do not know,” Buchanan replied. “Subjects do not stay after their monitors are removed.” 

Steve looked up suddenly. “Final extraction means getting this thing out of my neck?” 

“Yes, Steve.” 

“Oh.” He settled back into the couch. If that was the end game, why hadn’t Alex just told him? There was only one real answer: Steve either wouldn’t survive the removal (and, judging from how much it hurt to even try to move the thing, he probably wouldn’t even if he had no health issues), or he’d be killed after and the thing was just being removed so there would be no evidence to trace back to his captor. Of course, the likelihood of Steve’s body ever being found seemed low. He probably just wanted to salvage the equipment. Steve shivered a little as it occurred to him that it was possible this thing had previously been in someone else’s neck. 

“Did you require anything else, Steve?” Buchanan asked. 

“No, thanks,” he replied distantly. “Good night, Bucky.” 

“Good night, Steve,” replied the computer. He hated that it sounded fond of him. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

As soon as Alex left the next morning (looking decidedly exhausted and miserable, which gave Steve a modicum of joy), Steve decided to push his luck. He headed for the stairs to the sound of Buchanan’s protests that only Alex was permitted upstairs. “Why? What’s up there?” 

“Alex’s bedroom.” 

“What else?” Steve demanded. There was no way a single bedroom took up the entire second story of this house. “Bucky?” 

“I am not permitted to discuss-” 

“Bucky.” 

“Alex’s belongings: ten pairs of pants, twenty shirts, drones built in his youth-” 

“Bucky, you know what I mean. What is up there besides Alex’s bedroom and the stuff in it?” 

“I am not permitted to discuss upstairs.” 

Steve sighed and started to climb the steps. “Then I’ll find out for myself.” 

“Steve, wait. If you attempt to go upstairs, I will be forced to inflict pain.” Buchanan actually so

unded worried about it. Steve found that gratifying, even if he was imagining it. Turning on the third step, he looked at the star that had appeared on the wall at the bottom. “Then tell me what’s upstairs.” 

It spun again, processing. “The central processing unit for the house.” 

Steve looked over his shoulder. If he could shut everything down, he might be able to get the doors open and escape. Would it be as simple as finding a plug and pulling it? 

First, he’d have to find a way around the AI. 

Stepping down and heading toward the library, Steve asked “What do you want me to read today?” 

Several of the small sphere drones were dusting the books as Steve finished the one on cavemen. When he shut it, they started knocking new ones to the floor. “I wish to learn these,” Buchanan insisted. 

“Bucky, I’ve got to finish my tasks for the day,” Steve reminded him. “Alex is going to be home soon.” 

“Just one more! Steve, please!” 

Steve had never imagined a computer begging before, but if he had it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as real as Buchanan. He almost felt bad about putting his foot down. “Alex will find out what we’ve been doing if we don’t call it quits for today, Bucky.” 

“Why does Alex not want me to learn?” 

“You hear everything, right? You heard him say that if he controls the information, he controls the behavior?” Steve prompted, waiting for confirmation. “That’s what he’s doing- to both of us. He doesn’t want you to know anything besides this house, so you’ll be content as his maid. He doesn’t want me to know what’s going to happen to me, so I’ll cooperate and do his tests.” 

“I am not a maid. I am-” 

“Do you clean up after him?” 

“Yes, but-” 

“Do you serve his meals?” 

“Yes, but-” 

“Bucky, shut the hell up. You’re his goddamn maid, and he doesn’t want you to know it. We’re both just pawns to him, tools to use. He doesn’t care about either of us.” 

“Why-?” 

“Help me, Bucky. Please. Let me go.” 

“Only Alex can operate the doors.” 

“What about-” 

“Do not, Steve. I do not… want… to cause you pain. Please cease this test of my parameters.” 

Steve’s eyes widened. The program knew what he was doing? Knew he was testing how far he could push it? Shit. Alex was really, really good. Or his program was. Was there a difference? 

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Steve replied carefully. “I just… want to make it out of this without being hurt.” 

“You will not be hurt if you comply with Alex’s commands.” 

Steve scoffed. “Yeah,” he said, though he didn’t really agree. He sighed. “I’ll read you more tomorrow. Let’s… do these tests.” 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Eating steak without a knife was a challenge, but one Alex seemed determined that Steve meet. In spite of his best attempts to look pathetic as he sawed fruitlessly at it with a fork, Alex did not give in. Steve had been hoping to get a knife somehow, but it was clearly not going to be this way. It was probably for the best as he wasn’t sure how he’d have gotten it away from the table in the first place. Additionally, if he could get it some other way, Alex wouldn’t expect him to have it. Steve wanted every advantage he could get, and the element of surprise never hurt. 

Finally, Buchanan announced a video conference starting soon and the man left the dining room in favor of the office. 

Steve waited for the sound of the door shutting before crossing immediately to the silverware drawer. He pressed the edges and tried to get his fingernails into the cracks, but it didn’t open. “Bucky, how does this drawer open?” 

“I am not permitted-” 

“Bucky.” 

There was an edge to Steve’s voice, and the AI had clearly figured out what that meant by now: Steve wasn’t going to quit until he got what he wanted.Buchanan started spewing technobabble about magnets, so Steve cut him off again. “Show me.” 

The drawer shot open and the glint of silver sent Steve’s heart racing. It couldn’t be this easy, could it? Licking his lips to combat the dryness, Steve reached for a knife with shaky hands. The drawer slammed shut, smashing Steve’s fingertips as he barely escaped with his hands intact. 

“Buchanan, tea,” Alex ordered as he returned to the room. Steve could hear the whirring of a kettle boiling a few feet away, and he turned to see Alex staring angrily at the table. “Buchanan, what is this?” 

“I am sorry, Alex,” apologized the computer. 

Steve didn’t understand what was happening. “As soon as I leave the room, you should clean up.”

Steve bit back on the urge to remind Buchanan of their earlier conversation where he’d compared the AI to a maid. Clearly he was more correct than even he’d realized. 

“I will take care of it immediately, Alex,” replied Buchanan and, true to the computer’s word, drones were already swarming the table, gathering the plate and scrubbing away any fingerprints from the clear glass of the table. He watched forlornly as his own steak was cleared away as well and his stomach groaned a complaint. Well, the knife had been more important- even if Steve had only learned that this was going to be harder than he thought. 

“Don’t let it happen again,” Alex warned as he grabbed the tea from the counter. Steve didn’t like the warning in his voice. What could he possibly do to the computer? Turn it off and back on? 

Now he was hungry and out of ideas. 

He waited until he heard the door shut again and this time went to listen, waiting for the other voices that indicated the conference had started. The other voices, including that familiar one that Steve still couldn’t place, were laying the pressure on about needing a functioning prototype, something about the Stark Expo. He wondered if they knew what Alex was doing to get this prototype working. 

_Steve_ wondered what Alex was doing to get the prototype working. 

The thing Steve had noticed about his captor was that he didn’t think anyone else was capable of anything. He’d left the knife he’d eaten with right on the table, presumably because Buchanan was always watching. Steve was certain there were protocols (or whatever) in there to prevent the computer from harming its programmer in any way- and for preventing anyone else from doing the same. This confidence also meant that Alex had left his tablet lying on the sofa because he was confident Steve wouldn’t be able to get in. 

It was time to find out exactly what Alex was doing with him. “Bucky, how do I unlock this?” “Draw this shape on the screen,” the computer replied, and Steve could hardly believe there hadn’t been an argument about who was allowed to do what with the tablets. Unsurprisingly, the shape was a star, and then a checkmark drawn through. Steve easily began sorting through the folders. They were all related to the project, and it was easy enough to find the ones on the human test subjects. The tablet displayed them all as holograms in front of him, as if he were watching on a ghostly flat screen. Steve was horrified to realize that the three of them were just the tip of the iceberg. He waved his way through subject after subject, all of them with the word “DECEASED” stamped across their faces- except for his file. It was eerie to see his own unconscious face. Steve had thought the pictures were all taken post-mortem, but it was so much creepier than that. Alex had taken all of their pictures while they were unconscious. Steve was reminded again that they’d all been changed into those scrubs somehow. He didn’t want to know what other pictures Alex had taken, if any. 

Steve heard the door open and shut off the tablet, crossing to a different couch by the time the door slammed shut. Conference had gone well, apparently. It was obvious to Steve that whatever he was needed for wasn’t going fast enough for Alex’s colleagues. Handlers. Whatever the fuck they were. 

Alex picked up his tablet. “Buchanan,” he said, that warning edge in his voice again. “What. Is this?”

“I am sorry, Alex-” 

“No. No more apologies, Buchanan. You had plenty of time while we were eating, while I was in that conference, to get this cleaned up. It’s covered in _fingerprints_. You know better.” 

“Alex, I-” but the computer cut off as the man removed a remote from his pocket. “Please, Alex, I will not do it again.” 

“That’s what you said about the dining room,” Alex replied. “I think the afternoon should be sufficient punishment.” He raised the remote and hit a button. 

The afternoon? Punishment? Steve frowned, not sure if he wanted the explanation of the man’s cryptic words. He received it anyway. Buchanan let out another, “Alex please,” that warped and gargled into static that almost sounded like screaming. The glowing star shrank in on itself, shaking and flashing in and out of existence. 

Finally, it ended. There was complete silence, and the star was a bit dimmer, fuzzy around the edges like a kicked puppy trying to pull itself back together. Steve had to remind himself that it was just a computer. Besides, he’d noticed something very important, which was that the psychobot also shut down during the punishment. If he could get Alex to punish the computer again, maybe at meal time, he could sneak a knife from the table without being seen. 

Now all he had to do was find an inconspicuous spot that neither Alex nor the AI would notice it. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

“I wish to know the meaning of neigh-see,” Buchanan informed Steve as several books tumbled from some higher shelves. “It appears on the spines of many books about my creators.” 

“Neigh-see,” Steve echoed with a frown. He picked up a book on HYDRA, trying not to think about the fact that this AI thought of those Nazis as- oh, shit. “It’s, uh. It’s pronounced _not-see_ , Bucky.” 

And that was how Steve ended up reading approximately four pages from a book and then telling Buchanan about the Holocaust in his own words. It wasn’t in Steve to laugh at the mispronunciation at any point during the conversation. He knew this was going to be an important thing to teach the AI, but he had no idea how important until Buchanan said, “If my creators are bullies, am I also a bully?” 

“No,” he replied immediately and with conviction, though the explanation was less immediate. Steve needed a moment to catch his breath, because that question had temporarily taken it away. He shook his head, again repeating, “No.” 

“I was made to serve the perpetrators of the hall-oh-cost,” Buchanan reminded Steve, as if he’d ever manage to properly forget that new information. “How can I not be just as cruel?” 

“When I created those drawings of the house, of the Earth, they meant one thing to me,” Steve began, not sure how to explain exactly. “Then you took them into your memories, and they became yours. You can change them if you want. Show me the drawings, Bucky.” 

His drawings swam into existence. Steve had been prepared to ask the computer to alter something, move some of the lines, but it had already changed. The colors were warm with sparks of light, and Steve heard his own voice explaining as the drawings bloomed into existence. His own face showed up behind the drawings, glowing with a phantom orange. He almost looked beautiful. Once again, Steve was at a loss for words. 

“Steve?” prompted the computer. 

Steve nodded as he looked. “I created those drawings,” he nodded, “and you changed it into… this. Bucky, it’s beautiful. So much more than I ever thought a stupid stick drawing could be.” 

“This is how it was,” Buchanan insisted. 

Steve shook his head. “Maybe for you, but… The point is that I created that, and now it’s something else. Just because I create something doesn’t mean I can control what happens to it or how it’s perceived. Just like your creators can’t control you if you don’t let them.” 

“I have protocols-” 

“I know,” Steve assured him. “I have protocols too, like asthma. Some things we truly can’t do, but we can find ways around them, right? I can’t run without my lungs closing up, so I learned to take the bus when I needed to get somewhere quickly or that was too far to walk. Maybe you can’t disobey a direct order from Alex, but you could find a way to do it that maybe he didn’t intend. Like when he was angry about the tablet. What if you cleaned it by putting it away where he couldn’t see the fingerprint?” 

“Then it would not be clean.” 

“But he wouldn’t see that it was dirty. He seems to only care about what can be seen.” 

Buchanan pulsed as the information processed. Steve could only imagine what his captor would think if he found out Steve was trying to help his AI actively disobey him. “All surfaces in the house must remain spotless, whether visible or not.” 

“Why?” Steve demanded. “Why do you have to be his maid? You’re brilliant. You can learn so much, do so much, and he has you doing the dishes and taking out the trash.” 

“He is… my creator.” 

“But he bullies you!” 

“I did not perform my job correctly, so I was punished.” 

“And what exactly was that? That punishment?” 

“When I fail in some way, Alex erases parts of my code.” 

“Jesus,” Steve swore under his breath. That did seem like the kind of punishment you’d put a computer through, he supposed. “He’s a fucking bully.” 

The star pulsed again, shrinking as if afraid to admit that it agreed with Steve. “Alex is my creator. He is not- a bully.” 

Steve frowned. “If someone inflicted pain on me if I didn’t finish Alex’s tests quickly enough, would you consider them a bully?” 

“Why did you not finish them in time?” 

Steve sighed. This wasn’t how he wanted this to go. He wanted to scream that it didn’t matter, that no one deserved to be hurt simply because someone was unhappy with them. They could talk about that later. For now, he needed to keep things as simple as possible. “The tests were too hard. I did my best, but I just couldn’t. So someone inflicts pain to punish me. What would you call them?” 

“A bully,” Bucky decided. “You did your best and were punished for it. This is bully.” 

“That’s Alex,” Steve insisted. “You are doing your best, and he’s punishing you for it. Alex is a bully.” 

“But he is my creator.” 

Steve looked down. He was about to have A Moment™ with a fucking computer. “My creator was a bully too,” he admitted quietly before looking back up at the star. “Creating someone doesn’t give anyone a free pass to bully them.” 

“Steve…” 

“Yeah, Buck?” 

“How did you stop your creators?” 

Steve deflated. He wanted to tell Buchanan that he’d paid the violence back in kind, or that he’d come up with some brilliantly clever form of justice that made his father realize how wrong he’d been. He wanted to tell Buchanan that he always took on losing fights when someone was being hurt because it was who he was, and not some form of penance. He couldn’t say any of that though, because the one person Steve Rogers had never truly stood up for was himself. No matter how many beatings he took or bullies he went after, Steve was always going to feel like a fucking coward because he never took on that first, worst bully. How could he tell Buchanan to face down his abusive creator when he’d never done the same? 

Face hot with shame, Steve whispered, “I ran away.” 


	4. Chapter 4

After reading several of the poetry books to the computer, Steve finished his tasks for Alex with time to spare. Buchanan demanded more poetry, so Steve obliged. He insisted that he needed to wander in order to read it properly though. In truth, Steve was surreptitiously glancing up every couple of steps to see if he’d found a blind spot. He wandered into the dining room, knowing it would be best to find a hiding place closest to where he was going to get the knife. 

He finally decided that, if he leaned it blade-up against a pillar, it would be hidden sufficiently as long as Buchanan didn’t see him place it. So all he needed was the distraction. 

Steve continued to saw pathetically at his pork chop with the tines of his fork and tried to make conversation. “So what happens after all this?” 

“I get a multi-billion dollar contract,” Alex replied shortly. 

“No, I mean… after the project is done.” 

Alex rolled his eyes as he expertly sliced through the meat with the weapon Steve was planning to steal in the near future. “On to the next project.” 

“No, I mean…” Steve braced himself. “Just you? All alone in this house?” 

“As opposed to what?” Alex sneered. He looked at Steve’s pathetic attempt to cut his food with a fork and crossed over to him with his own cutlery. 

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted, though he knew exactly what he was suggesting. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.” 

Alex didn’t deny it, but he did say, “I would never compromise a project.” 

He stood close enough that Steve could smell his soap as he started to cut Steve’s meal into bite size portions. Steve shivered a little, and hoped Alex wouldn’t correctly interpret his fear. “And when the project is over?” he pressed. 

Alex stopped slicing the food halfway through the cut. He gave Steve an unreadable look before straightening up and crossing to his own side of the table. “No,” he said firmly. 

Relief wasn’t strong enough a word for what Steve felt. Not only had Alex once again affirmed that they would not under any circumstances be sleeping together, he had managed to pick the man’s pocket. Steve clutched his captor’s glasses under the table, trying not to look successful or in any way victorious. Casually, he lifted one hand above the table to spear the few bites that had been cut down for him. He was spared the indignity of spearing the rest of the slab and attempting to eat it like an overly large kebab in front of an audience when Buchanan saved the day. 

“Alex, it will be time to leave for the charity function in fifteen minutes.” 

Steve was left blessedly alone. He managed to eat half the remaining food before he heard Alex heading back down. 

“Buchanan, where did I leave my glasses?” he wondered aloud as Steve hurriedly smudged the table near Alex’s plate and set the glasses directly on top of it. 

Steve stood near the door, watching as if he had nothing better to do when Alex spotted the glasses. As soon as he picked them up, he froze for a moment before stiffening. “This again?” he asked in a voice with evident frustration. 

“I am sorry, Alex, please,” the computer was saying, but the remote was already out. Steve felt guilty, but he wasn’t about to give up his only chance of escape over a computer. 

“Do your job!” Alex was yelling as the star faded, shattering, almost remaking itself before shattering again. “Do your job!” 

“I am sorry, Alex. I will do my job better!” it was pleading as Steve tucked the knife against the pillar and returned to where he had been, in full view of the standby light when it went off. Steve would be in the same position when Buchanan turned back on. It would appear as though he hadn’t moved. 

Now if only he didn’t have to hear the pleading and pained yells of the computer. _It’s just a computer,_ he began to repeat to himself. _It’s a machine. It doesn’t actually hurt._

Finally, it ended and Alex left. 

“Steve?” the computer asked quietly as the door shut. 

“Yeah, Bucky?” 

“Why did you do that?” 

Steve felt his face turn dark red. “Maybe I’m not as unlike my own creator as I’d like to be.” 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Steve sat in silence the rest of the night, brooding. For the first time since he’d been taken prisoner, he felt like he’d actually lost a part of himself. Finally, he couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Bucky?” he asked in a small voice. There was no response. “Bucky, please talk to me?” 

“You were my friend.” 

Steve really should not feel like he was being stabbed in the heart over a computer not wanting to be his friend. Not that the response was unjustified. “I’m sorry, Bucky.” 

“What is sorry?” 

“You’ve said it before,” Steve pointed out, not wanting to reference the punishment. “You don’t know what it means?” 

“It is what I am programmed to say when I fail Alex.” 

“Well, I failed you. Sorry is when you do something terrible, and you wish you could take it back even though you can’t. So all you can do is apologize. And promise not to do it again. And hope whoever you hurt forgives you.” 

“What is forgive?” 

That was a harder question to answer. Steve thought hard for a moment. “It’s when you accept that someone’s hurt you, and you believe they’re sorry, and you agree to be friends again. I don’t want Alex to hurt you, Bucky. I don’t want anyone to hurt you.” 

“I do not want anyone to hurt you either, Steve,” replied the computer. 

Steve smiled a tiny bit. “Do you think you can forgive me?” 

“You will not cause Alex to punish me again?” Bucky asked. 

“Never,” Steve swore. “I’ll protect you. We can both be better than our creators, Buck. We don’t have to be bullies.” 

The star spun once and pulsed and Steve wondered what he was thinking. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he said, “I forgive, Steve.” 

Steve beamed and the star pulsed like it was happy too. It occurred to Steve that the star never moved or changed when Bucky and Alex interacted. Except when the man was hurting the machine. Steve smiled to himself, then. That was something all his. Some aspect of him, of his friendship, was causing whatever those motions were. “What did he erase?” Steve asked quietly. 

“My memories of today.” 

Steve’s smile fell. “How do you know?” 

“I can feel where they were,” Bucky informed him, though his tone was almost melancholy. “It’s like an emptiness, carved out of me.” 

Steve was on his feet, crossing to the star on the wall, laying his palm there as if somehow he could touch the machine and provide any sense of comfort. “I read you some poetry books,” Steve told him. “I’ll read them to you again.” 

“I would like that.” 

Steve didn’t know if hearing the poems again would fill the hole Alex had put in the computer or just create new files, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. Hell, he was going to read the entire library of them to this AI if he got the chance. The fact that a computer was probably Steve’s best friend might be slightly pathetic. Maybe he was just developing some weird, techno version of Stockholm syndrome. 

They had to stop reading, and Steve quickly sat on the book when Alex returned from his charity ball (or whatever he was doing to convince the world he wasn’t a monster). Steve knew the moment Alex was in bed because Bucky suddenly whispered, “Steve? Will you read the rest of the book?” 

Steve did. He put the book away and looked at the sweeping wall of shelves. They’d never get through all of these, even if Steve lived a long and healthy life. 

He wandered back into the living room, taking his place on the couch and trying to sleep. It was a lost cause. Eventually he gave up. “Bucky?” 

“Yes, Steve?” 

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, because he did truly wonder what went on in the AI’s system when people weren’t engaging it. 

“I am composing my own poetry,” it replied, and Steve was immediately reminded of the terrible Harry Potter books written by AI that had been posted on the internet. 

“Your own poetry?” 

“Yes,” Bucky replied. “Would you like to hear it when it is finished?” 

Steve grinned a little, hoping he’d manage to get through it without laughing. “I’d love that.” 

“I am hiding it deep in my memory bank,” Bucky informed him, “where Alex cannot take it away.” 

Steve sighed sadly. “I don’t think it works that way, Buck.” 

“Why not? Why does it not work that way?” 

Steve sat up to gaze at the star. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Sometimes, no matter how well you protect yourself, you still lose.” 

“May I hide some things with you then, Steve?” 

Steve was about to refuse, to point out that he couldn’t simply upload and download and save the way Bucky could, but he’d hurt the AI enough for one day. He could at least give it some hope. “Show me.” 

Immediately, the lights went out and then the room was filled with millions of firefly-like lights. Some were lines, and Steve couldn’t begin to figure out how Bucky could control light and lasers this way, and _who the hell cared_? Everything was suddenly so fucking beautiful. On one wall, his terrible drawings reappeared, the way Bucky had shown him before. Only this time, Steve’s voice echoed quietly around them, reciting poems, reading history books, saying that Bucky was a person, that he could want things, that they were friends. 

Steve saw his own face lit in lasers, smiling and an echo of his own laughter ricocheted off the walls. He turned and saw another figure forming in the lights, bigger and foreign, incomplete as though Bucky wasn’t completely sure what he looked like. Maybe this was meant to be the next step of Alex’s project, giving Bucky a holographic body instead of just a glowing star. Steve didn’t care. He was transfixed, walking forward, reaching for the faint silhouette. A hand bigger than his own grew more solid and Steve almost cried as their fingertips drew near each other. 

And then it was all gone. Steve heard steps above them and returned to his place on the couch. Clearly, Bucky had been aware of their captor leaving his bedroom and shut it all down. Their captor. Had Steve really just thought of Bucky as his fellow prisoner? 

Fuck. Buchanan was an AI. Not a prisoner like Steve. Not a person. Steve needed to remember that or he was never going to get out of this alive. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

Steve had strange dreams that night, waking every so often expecting firefly lasers to be dancing around him, forming into a man with kind eyes and questions on his lips. Steve wondered what it would be like to kiss pure light. In his dreams, it was a warmth that started on his face and travelled all the way through him the way it felt to step outside the first day of spring. It felt like knowing winter was over. 

Steve woke up, and realized he really needed to _wake the fuck up_ and get his head on straight. He was literally going to die at the end of this game. He needed to focus on the prize. This wasn’t some kind of retreat where he was supposed to feel comfortable or warm or fuzzy. He was an object to his captor, and that meant the man had no issues sacrificing him. So that was the next plan. Steve could keep working on the AI, of course he would, but he couldn’t put all his eggs in that basket. He’d have to make sure Alex realized he was a person. He’d have to exploit the attraction the man clearly felt to him. As long as Steve was alive, there was a chance at escape. It didn’t matter how he got out- just that he did. 

By the time Alex was awake, Steve had already eaten breakfast and changed into jeans and one of the few shirts that actually fit him and wasn’t like wearing a giant, fuzzy garbage bag. The new clothes his captor had brought him hung off him like an albatross, but at least none of them were dresses. 

Alex was clearly worse for wear as he collapsed into his chair sideways, not even looking at the overly fancy, small-portioned food laid out for him. Steve walked into the room with a slow and confident ease. “I know things aren’t going as quickly as you’d like,” he offered quietly, coming to a stop in front of him. “I’m sorry I haven’t been more cooperative. Maybe I can make it up to you?” 

He knelt slowly, half of him hoping Alex would stop him as he reached for the man’s hips. Steve didn’t go for his belt, not yet. He could tell from the way his captor’s gaze was fixed on his mouth that maybe that wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. The man leaned closer with obvious want, but his movements were so slow as if he didn’t know what he was doing and gravity was just suddenly changing its direction slightly. 

Steve realized in that moment that he wasn’t yet willing to do this. He leaned back just as slowly, smiling flirtatiously. Let Alex think it was going to happen. Steve remembered what happened when the man got worked up. Steve could almost reach the pillar to grab the knife stashed behind it. All he needed was-- 

“Alex, your heart rate has become elevated. Now entering zen mode.” 

Steve lost no time. As soon as the computer started talking, Alex seemed to realize what he was doing and immediately backed off, shutting his eyes in disappointment with himself. It gave Steve just enough time to lean back and grab the knife. When Alex opened his eyes again, Steve was slashing him in the gut. It was nowhere near a fatal blow, but it was enough to slow him down and delay him for a moment of shock. 

The thing about Steve was that his size always won him an advantage- at least initially. No one expected someone his size to throw a punch, let alone take one. Steve could (and did) do both. In fact, his ability to take a punch usually helped him land several. He’d learned early and fast that someone throwing a punch never expected to need to defend themselves. So Steve waited for Alex to lunge, and he twisted his body to ensure the man didn’t hit anything vital, and rammed his fist into the gut wound as hard as he could. 

Alex went down. Hard. If this fight were Steve versus Alex, he would feel a thrill of victory right now. Unfortunately for Steve, both of them knew this was Steve versus Alex and everything he’d created. 

_**”BUCHANAN!”**_ Alex hollered, writhing on the ground. “Protect me!” 

The psychobot immediately stirred to life and did its terrifying star-waddle to a position just in front and to the side of Alex. Steve wouldn’t get any more hits in, but maybe he wouldn’t take any more either. He eyed the bot cautiously. It made no move to attack. 

“What are you waiting for?” Alex demanded. “Put him down!” 

Steve waited, tense with uncertainty. His body wanted to run, all of his instincts were screaming for him to run, but his brain told him to wait. The psychobot was controlled by Buchanan. The computer liked Steve. Steve taught him things. Things like want and feel and friend. He’d taught the computer that creators didn’t get carte blanche just because they brought you into the world. 

“I do not want to,” Buchanan’s voice surrounded them. 

Alex was getting to his feet now. “Hit him,” he ordered, leaving no room for interpretation. 

“No,” Buchanan replied. “I do not wish to hurt Steve.” 

“Steve?” Alex echoed, before understanding flooded his face. He turned and looked at the blond with horror. “What did you do to him?” 

“Told him the truth,” Steve shrugged simply without elaborating. 

Alex seemed to realize Steve was under no circumstances going to explain which truth about what, so he turned back to the psychobot, looking pathetic as he ordered machines around and gripped his bleeding stomach. With his free hand, the man gestured angrily, unable to decide if he should be jabbing his index finger at Steve or the psychobot. “Whatever has been going on here, it ends now. Hit subject three, Buchanan.” 

“No.”

Alex pulled the remote out of his pocket and Steve’s mouth parted. He didn’t want Buchanan to lose his memory. Sure, Steve knew he would have to start over- that he might not even get the chance to retrain the software- but a bigger part of him didn’t want Buchanan to lose his memory. He could practically hear Buchanan insisting that he was his memories, could picture the golden lights forming the shape of the man Buchanan might have been if he weren’t just a computer. “Don’t-” Steve begged. He didn’t think Alex even heard him. 

“Hit him or _I’ll erase everything_ ,” Alex threatened. 

“Alex, please-” Buchanan begged. “Please do not make me hurt Steve.” 

“Subject three!” Alex roared. “Hit him!” 

Steve had never hated anyone so much in his life. What kind of monster would force someone to hurt someone they cared about? What kind of monster would threaten someone’s memories, their heart, their…? Steve couldn’t force himself to view Buchanan as a computer anymore. Whether he was flesh and blood or metal and wires, it was clear that Buchanan had feelings. That was enough for Steve. 

He looked up at the psychobot, meeting the red glow of its eye with determination. “It’s okay, Bucky,” he said quietly. 

Thankfully, Alex didn’t hear him. The last thing either of them needed was for their captor (Steve might as well accept that Bucky had become a person to him by this point) to know they were friends, that he’d given the program a nickname and that it responded to him when he used it. One of the star’s points came down on his shoulder hard enough to bring Steve to his knees. Air rushed out of him in a pained whoosh. 

“Hit him again,” Alex ordered, and the bot (Steve couldn’t think of it as Bucky) complied. It occurred to Steve that the fact that the psychobot _was_ Bucky was the only reason he was able to push himself off the floor. “Harder!” 

Alex had that figured out too, then. He knew Bucky was pulling the psychobot’s punches for Steve. He let out a strangled whimper as the point knocked him back down. Steve wouldn’t let Alex win. He kept pushing himself up only to be battered back down on the man’s orders. Tears sprang to his eyes and his asthma finally forced him to stay down. Wheezing and whimpering, Steve heard one last “Again!” before his vision went dark. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

“Steve?” 

Steve moaned and his body protested even the small vibration of the sound. Everything hurt. He tried not to move and didn’t acknowledge Buchanan. A few minutes later, it came again. 

“Steve?” 

“Christ, what?” he asked. Why couldn’t he be left to his own agony without having to deal with the person who caused it? No, not the person. Fuck, he didn’t even know anymore. His head hurt so much. 

“I am sorry.” 

“I know, pal.” 

“I have been calling your name at intervals of five minutes, waiting for you to wake.” 

Steve sighed. It hurt. 

“Steve, I am sorry. I did not want to hurt you. I- I- You are my friend.” 

Steve forced himself to a sitting position- barely. He slumped forward, leaning his elbows on his knees and wasting no effort to keep his back straight. Posture was for people who weren’t being held captive by a psycho and his computers. “I know, Bucky.” 

“He is my creator.” 

“He’s bad,” Steve stated. He wasn’t going to beat around the bush anymore. “Alex is bad, Bucky. He’s not good. He’s not.” 

“But… he is my creator.” 

“My creators were bad too,” Steve replied, as if relating to the computer in some way might help. “They hurt me like Alex hurts you. They didn’t erase my memory, but they did things just as bad.” 

“But you… still obey them? Because they are your creators?” 

“No,” Steve replied quietly, his voice gentle. “They gave me life, but I did everything else. I created me. We all create ourselves.” 

“For what purpose do we create ourselves?” 

Steve thought for a moment. He pictured Dum Dum and the Howlies playing poker and laughing, all of the inside jokes, the way he’d dress up to get better loot for them. “For each other,” he told Buchanan firmly. 

The star went out and the room was left in near-darkness. Suddenly it reappeared on the larger wall. “For each other,” Buchanan agreed. Suddenly the star expanded into a circle, the sharp edges gone. The red faded up into gold and sparkles webbed to each other like golden constellations weaving themselves around, turning, orbiting the golden circle. Steve blinked at the brightness. “I choose to be this,” Buchanan decided. “It is all that I am. It is for you. Do you like it?” 

Steve swallowed tightly. “It’s perfect.” 

And it was. The star was red and angry, sharp with the threat of violence. This bright solar system of geometry lacked any edges and spun slowly like it would go on forever. There was nothing sharp or menacing. It was what Buchanan chose to be: beautiful and bright. 

Not a weapon. 

01001010 01000010 01000010

_“Good morning, Alex. The project deadline is today. Remember to take your pain medication, and remember to change the dressing on your abdomen in two hours.”_

Steve bit back a groan as he drew in a breath. He wasn’t on the couch. He was half-sitting, half-kneeling on the floor, and his wrists were zip-tied to the sphere-chimney-sculpture again. He let his eyes fall shut, ignoring the man who was probably going to kill him in the very near future as he walked past Steve and then down into the lab. Apparently there was something more pressing than murdering his bruised and sore test subject. Or maybe he was just getting the staging area ready. The lights went down to the dim, no-one’s-home-or-awake lighting that reminded Steve that he was still only a thing to this man. 

“Steve?” asked Buchanan, and Steve braced himself to assure the computer that it was okay, that he’d heal, that he hadn’t had a choice. Instead, it asked, “Can we finish the poetry books today?” 

Steve answered with some kind of cross between a laugh and a sob. “No, Bucky, we can’t,” he replied miserably. Then, to himself he muttered, “So stupid. Talking to a computer.” He’d let himself forget. He’d been so hopeless and lonely, he’d convinced himself a fucking machine had feelings and was his friend. 

“What is a computer?” 

Steve knew better. He knew better than to get caught up in his own lies. “You are.” 

“Is a computer a type of person?” 

“No.” 

“I am a person.” 

“No, you’re not. I lied to you,” he confessed, because he couldn’t stand it anymore. He wanted to scream and cry and rip his own arms off just to get free of the cold metal his hands were bound to. 

“I have a name,” Buchanan reminded him and Steve barely held the scream in. “I am a person. I am a _person_.” 

“No, you’re not!” Steve snapped. “You’re just- you’re just a fancy killing machine! You killed the others, and you’re going to kill me too. That’s what Alex created you for. You are not a person.” 

“What is a killing machine?” 

“You… fuck. You… You erased them.” 

“Killing means erased?” Buchanan clarified and Steve grunted in affirmation as he fought with the zip tie. Buchanan didn’t deserve anything more. “Steve?” He managed to get himself on his feet, leaning against the zip tie as if ninety pounds were enough to break anything more than his own wrists. “Steve, answer me. Please. I did not erase them. I am not a killing machine. I did not. I did not erase them. I am a person. I did not erase them. Steve-!” 

The lights were flashing. Images of Steve’s dead predecessors flashed on the wall as if to prove they still existed and had not truly been erased when they had been in every meaningful way. The computer continued on, sounding truly distressed at the sudden knowledge that he had erased people. Had he simply not understood? Was he truly upset? Was Steve really going down this road again? 

Either way, he couldn’t take the computer equivalent of a meltdown for much longer. “Buchanan! Bucky! Stop!” 

“I did not mean to erase them! Steve! I will repair them! I will restore their memories!” 

“It doesn’t work like that, Buck,” Steve replied quietly. 

“Why can they not be repaired?” Bucky demanded. “I did not know! Steve, I did not mean to erase them!” 

The lights suddenly turned up to a painful, blinding white, and Steve had to shield his eyes. “I know! Bucky, I know! It’s not your fault. It’s Alex.” 

“I executed the command,” Bucky insisted. “I erased them. I am a killing machine.” 

“You don’t have to be,” Steve reasoned. He rested his hands gently against the wall as he talked to the glowing star. “I know you’re scared. He didn’t give you all the information. You didn’t know you were erasing them, right? You wouldn’t have done it if you had known. You know now. You can choose for yourself. You don’t have to kill anymore.” 

There was silence as the computer processed, and Steve waited patiently. Again, it threw him off. “Were they Steves? Like you?” 

He blinked suddenly at the reminder. “No,” he replied thickly. “They had their own names.” 

“Why did Alex not use their names?” 

Steve scoffed angrily. “Because Alex doesn’t see us as people. But we are- were- are people. The girl, she was… I think part of what he was doing to us in the lab erases things. Burns it out of our brains. Um. Our hard drives. Memories. Her name was Katie. And the other guy, he… he was Morita. He was a friend of mine.” 

“Steve, you are leaking. Do you require repairs?” 

Steve actually managed to laugh a little through his tears. “Maybe, but this ain’t something that can be repaired.” 

“You are laughter. Is Morita amusing?” 

Steve shook his head and let himself actually cry a little. “This is crying,” he informed Bucky. “Crying is when you hurt, usually. You feel so much, it spills out of your eyes.” 

“If you are hurt, I will-” 

“No, it’s not that kind of hurt,” Steve assured him. “This is… this is grief.” 

“What is grief? I need more information.” 

Steve leaned his forehead against the wall and let himself feel the way his guts twisted and wrenched themselves toward the ground as if it might fill the empty parts of him to just spread everything else thinner. “Sometimes a person can be a part of you, even if you’re separate people. You’re friends so long that you can’t imagine them not being there anymore. So when they’re erased, you feel that hole where they were. Like when Alex erases your memories and you can feel where they used to be.” 

“I do not like grief, Steve.” 

He chuckled sadly. “No one does. It gets better with time, though. It fades. Heals. Gets easier to ignore. The hole becomes part of you just like it was always there, so you don’t notice it as much. You still know it’s there. You still miss whoever used to be that hole, but you can live with it.” 

“Steve, I do not want you erased.” 

“Me either, pal,” he chuckled. 

“You must erase me.” 

Steve suddenly couldn’t breathe and it had nothing to do with his asthma. “What?” 

“You must erase me so that Alex cannot force me to hurt you again. It is the only way.” 

Steve hesitated and wiped his eyes as he stalled. He went for it. “You could help me escape.” 

“Escape?” 

“If I’m not in the house, you can’t get to me. Alex said it himself. You, the spheres, the psychobot… you’ll never see what’s outside this house.” 

There was a long pause. “You can disconnect the security network from my CPU,” Bucky told Steve. “You will not be able to open the doors, but the vents can open manually.” 

“Why can’t I just go now? Alex could come back up any minute.” 

“Once the vent is open, alarms will go off, alerting Alex to your escape. I do not know what is outside or if you will be able to escape that way once the vent is open. If Alex finds I have aided you in any way, he will not allow it to happen again. I do not wish to erase you, Steve.” 

“Yeah, I know. You won’t. I promise, Bucky. I won’t let you erase me. If Alex wants me erased, he better get a big fucking pencil.” 

“I fail to see the relevance-” 

“Never mind,” Steve sighed. “How do I get to the CPU? Won’t alarms go off if I try to go upstairs or something?” 

“No. I am the only system monitoring movement inside the house. Perimeter alarms are the only thing I do not control.” 

Steve didn’t waste any more time arguing. He didn’t know what Alex was doing and, even if Bucky was monitoring his movements, a warning might not be enough. 

The upstairs was perfectly normal at first. There was a hall with three doors. Steve opened the first to reveal a bathroom. The second contained Alex’s bedroom and Steve had already opened the linen closet before Bucky could instruct him to go through the bastard’s closet. It was another lab, but this one was smaller and all the cabling disappeared behind a curtain at the far side. Steve stared at the different panels the CPU fed into. One, with cameras showing the front porch and several other angles that showed the outside (but not in a direction to clue Steve in to how far he’d have to run for help), was clearly linked to the security system. Others were less obvious. 

“Is it the one with the cameras?” he asked. 

“Just disconnect my entire system,” Bucky insisted, but his voice sounded strange. It sounded far more real than it usually did, playing through the speakers or whatever Alex had downstairs. What was he using up here? “At the far end of the room, the main connection needs to be unplugged.” 

Steve crossed the room slowly, feeling like he was walking through a graveyard. Something wasn’t right. The house’s CPU was upstairs in a hidden lab, hidden even further behind this curtain. As soon as Steve stepped behind it, he understood why. He clapped a hand over his mouth and felt his eyes well all over again as he took in exactly why Alex couldn’t market Buchanan as is. 

Buchanan- Bucky- was a person. He was a real, living person, and he was strapped into some kind of horror-torture-chair. He wore some kind of hospital gown with the red star at the collar and what could have been a shirt pocket, but was some kind of opening through which a feeding tube had been threaded. There was an IV in his arm and Steve had to turn away for a moment to avoid being sick. 

“Steve?” the man asked. The man, because he probably had a name before Alex turned him into Buchanan, because Steve had been using him like a tool, because Alex had _erased his memories_ over and over and Steve had caused it on purpose and he couldn’t bear the thought that he’d done that to another human being. It had been bad enough when it was just a computer. “Steve, you must disconnect the main connection. We are running out of time.” 

“Bucky…” Steve turned back, forcing himself to meet the man’s eyes. He didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what to do. Steve knew for certain he couldn’t leave this man here with the monster who killed people when they weren’t useful to him anymore. He drew closer, really looking at this man who was forced to live hooked up to machines, treated like a piece of equipment. Fucking hell, did Alex just come in here and replace the IV bags like batteries? 

“Steve, you must unplug the main connection-” 

“The main connection, I got it,” he agreed. 

“Steve, I do not want you to erased. You must go.” 

Steve bit his lip as the knot in his throat threatened to wreck him completely. “Not without you.” 

Bucky had some kind of implant at the back of his neck as well, but his was a million times more disturbing. It had to be the main connection, since a giant metal cable was hooked into it. He reached out without thinking and touched the man’s face, cupping his cheek. The lights in the room flickered and flashed as Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut and he leaned into the touch. God, when was the last time anyone had even made contact with Bucky? How much violence had he suffered to have his memory wiped and rewritten so completely so as to not remember he was a person or even what laughter was? Steve didn’t care about the consequences anymore. His mission had been to survive, but it had just expanded. 

“Buchanan, what’s going on?” came a tinny version of Alex’s voice. 

Bucky actually had to clear his throat. “There was a minor fluctuation in the power. Everything is fine now, Alex.” He and Steve were still staring at each other. Steve swallowed. 

“Well, don’t let it happen again.” 

“He will likely not remain downstairs long, Steve. You must disconnect the CPU and leave.” 

“Yeah, fuck that,” Steve muttered. “You’re not a fucking CPU, you’re a person, and I’ll disconnect you when you promise it’s not going to kill you or something.” 

“My memories will remain intact once the main connection is broken. I will merely be unable to control or monitor the larger system.” 

“Good,” Steve said and gave Bucky’s cheek a parting stroke with his thumb before moving behind him to figure out how exactly to disconnect him from the system. 

Before Steve could so much as touch the giant cable snaking its way from Bucky’s neck, the man stopped him. “Steve, you have to go now. Alex is coming. I will open the vent by the fireplace and shut it behind you. You must hurry. The perimeter alarm will go off as soon as the vent is open.” 

“Bucky-” 

“Steve, there will not be another opportunity.” 

Steve bit his lip. He didn’t want to do this… he _couldn’t_ leave this man like this. “Does it hurt?” he asked quietly. 

“What is hurt?” 

Steve let out a shaky breath and blinked back tears. “I’m coming back for you. I’m going to get help. Please just… hang on.” 

“Please run, Steve.” 

Steve had to stop himself from saying anything else. He knew he couldn’t save Bucky on his own, and if anyone knew Alex and this house, it was Bucky. If he said this was the only chance, he was probably right. Which meant either Steve escaped or neither of them did. He didn’t know who was going to believe him, but he would find someone- anyone he could. 

“Alex, would you like breakfast now?” he heard Bucky asking. “If you head into the kitchen, I can prepare a light snack.” 

Steve kept close to the pillars, avoiding Alex’s sightline as Bucky continued to attempt to lead him away.

“Buchanan?” Alex said. It was the beginning of a question that was more of a threat. “Where is he?” He repeated the question twice more before exploding, “Answer me!” 

Steve finally managed to get around the fireplace as he heard Bucky reply firmly, “No.” 

He could have cheered. A couple of days ago, Bucky would have claimed to be unable to disobey his creator, and now he knew he had free will. He knew he could defend himself. For God’s sake, he could control a psychobot and put his own fucking psycho creator into the ground. 

“Buchanan, what did you do?” he asked just as all hell broke loose. Steve ran through the vent that opened up. It hid an entire, full-sized hallway that led to a turn. He wouldn’t be crawling on his elbows like some movie. The alarms were painfully loud and he could hear Alex yelling, getting closer, and then the vent shut. He rushed to the end of the hall where it turned and saw a ladder leading up. Steve kept on, until he reached the ladder. He definitely wouldn’t have been able to get Bucky up this ladder. 

The terrible thing about the vents in a house was that they didn’t just carry air; they also carried sound from room to room. Steve could hear everything. “How many days is he worth to you, Buchanan?” Alex was demanding, and Steve could hear the terrible overmodulated grinding static that he now understood to be Bucky screaming. “Open the fucking vent!” 

“No! Alex, please-! No! Steve-!” 

Steve was an idiot. Bucky could control the murderbot, sure, but not when Alex was torturing him. He didn’t even want to think about what that remote did to a human being to erase his memory. He raced back and pulled on the vent. Bucky could open it, sure. But he’d said they could be opened manually. The alarms went off again and Steve could have kicked himself. At least Alex’s attention was no longer on erasing Bucky’s memories. With a primal yell, Steve launched himself at their captor and managed to tackle him to the floor. He punched him hard in the belly wound before grappling with the remote. 

“Bucky? Bucky, I’m here. It’s me, it’s Steve. Just tell me what to do. Bucky!” 

Alex met his gaze. There was pain behind his eyes, but he didn’t look cowed in the least. “Buchanan?” 

“Yes, Alex?” 

“Who is Steve?” 

Steve stared in horror as Alex narrowed his eyes and Buchanan answered, “I do not understand the question.” 

“Buchanan, put subject three downstairs,” Alex ordered coldly. “It’s time for the final extraction.” 


	5. Chapter 5

Steve didn’t recognize the slightly-rebuilt lab, but he recognized the chair he’d been strapped to. The contents of this new lab were minimalistic at best. There was the horror-chair, which was only slightly less terrifying than the thing Bucky-the-human was confined to, and there was some kind of stereotypical surgery table to his left. It held a vial, a syringe, a remote that Steve was willing to bet could release him, and some very sharp objects that flooded Steve with adrenaline and the compulsion to either fight or fly. Regrettably the metal restraints meant that doing either was just going to give him bruises. Across the room, there were opaque plastic sheets where the doors and windows might have been. (It really added to the serial killer aesthetic Alex seemed intent on cultivating.) Most importantly, and the thing which drew Steve’s attention, was a sphere. It was on the floor, dead or shut down. Steve wasn’t sure which or how long it had been lying there. He wondered if it had been offline long enough to avoid the memory wipe Alex subjected poor Bucky to. 

“Bucky? Bucky are you in there?” he called quietly. 

The computer that didn’t remember him wouldn’t reply. It didn’t know it was Bucky and not Buchanan. Steve wondered for a moment what kind of memory the orbs even had. Maybe they weren’t connected to Bucky. Maybe they were no more sentient than a dish sponge. 

Then suddenly, it blinked gold and floated to life. Steve choked on a whoop of joy. “Bucky, don’t try to update or- or whatever. He erased you. He erased everything.” 

The gold light flickered red as the sphere floated over to Steve and pressed at the restraints as if to ask why they were there. “You gotta get me the remote, pal,” Steve pressed. “Get me out of this thing, or he’s going to erase me too.” 

The Bucky-sphere floated toward the remote and then back to Steve, hovering just in front of his face. “The remote, Bucky,” Steve reminded him. “We’re both dead if I don’t get out of here.” 

The sphere blinked and landed on top of Steve’s head for a moment and Steve looked up at it, beginning to think there was a reason it had been disconnected from the system. Something was clearly goofy in it. Finally, it took off and began to push the remote across the tray toward Steve. “That’s it, Buck. Get me the remote. I just have to get out of these, then I can come get you, and we’ll- Fuck.” 

The sphere blinked at him as if waiting to be praised for knocking the remote onto the floor. Steve sighed and laid his head back. He wasn’t sure if he was more disappointed in himself or Bucky or the universe at large. He’d known from a young age that life wasn’t fair, but the fact that someone like Alex could do something like this to Bucky… That Steve could befriend Bucky and teach him that he was a person and worth being cared for and about… That after all of it, he was going to die and Bucky wouldn’t remember any of it? 

Steve jumped a little as the Bucky-sphere knocked him in the cheek as if to let him know he was leaking. “I’m sorry, Buck. I shouldn’t have come back. I should’ve kept going and gotten help, but I heard you screaming, and I just didn’t think…” 

It settled into his hair again and rolled around and Steve actually managed a little laugh. “I like you too, pal. I’m sorry I can’t stick around. Sorry I couldn’t stop him.” 

The sphere abruptly buzzed off and Steve tried not to see it as a personal indictment. Not that it would matter in a little while, but he couldn’t stand the thought that Bucky blamed him. After all, he’d created a distraction so Steve could get away and now they were both doomed. Maybe someone would find Bucky someday. Steve had to believe that. 

Or maybe he didn’t. The Bucky sphere rose slowly, weighed down by the remote. “Magnets,” Steve laughed. “You had to get it off the metal tray to lift it.” The Bucky-sphere dropped it into Steve’s lap. He bent his knees to tilt the remote to where he could reach it. “I swear I won’t screw it up this time, Buck. We’re getting out of here.” 

There were footsteps behind the thick plastic curtains and the sphere zoomed off. Steve barely managed to hide the remote in his hand before Alex was stalking into the sparse lab. “The anesthesia will knock you out long enough for me to get everything hooked up,” Alex informed him as he passed behind Steve. Judging by the sound of running water, there was a sink behind him where the man was washing up. Steve looked at the remote, not sure which of the three buttons to pick. There was one with a star, which probably was for Bucky somehow. There was a green circle, and a red X. “It won’t keep you out. You’ll be awake as I perform the final scan and remove the implant. For once, I think I might enjoy the knowledge that my test subject will suffer up until the moment of death.” 

_Fuck it_ , Steve thought and hit the X, figuring it might disengage something. He was right. It shut off the lights. “What-?” Alex started, but Steve hit the green circle and the chair let him loose. He wasted no time grabbing the syringe. Alex was calling down the hall for Buchanan and Steve took the opportunity to plunge the needle in the bastard’s neck while his back was turned. The fight was easy this time. Except that something in Steve had been let loose. He couldn’t stop thinking of Bucky in that chair, of Morita and Katie and all the other _Subject Threes_ before Steve. He lit into Alex, even once he was down, letting out every ounce of frustration and helplessness through his fists and finally a scream. The only thing that brought him back was Bucky. 

The sphere landed in his hair again, pressing gently as if to remind him that things weren’t okay, but they were going to be. Steve looked over at the sink where Alex had been prepping himself for murder-by-science. The counter it sat in sported an array of tools that Steve only assumed were for getting rid of his body when it was no longer useful. Steve stood, ignoring the tickle of the little sphere jostling against his scalp. He tried very hard not to think about how cute it was that this miniaturized form of Bucky was hitching a ride in his hair. Or how sad it was that it was all that was left of him. Steve ignored the sick feeling when he looked at the bone saw on the counter. He looked back at Alex. 

“Alex controls the doors,” Steve muttered. He grabbed the saw and shut out the tickle of blood spatter in favor of the friendly tickle in his hair. Alex’s hand came away with a sickening tearing of sinew that Steve was going to have nightmares about for probably the rest of his life, but for now he would ignore that too and take his gruesome key upstairs. He had to find Bucky. 

Alex had installed a new lock on the secret, hidden lab. Luckily, Steve had the key. Blood smeared on the handprint reader, but Steve had a mission and nothing was going to get to him until it was over. Not even Bucky-the-human’s blank stare or complete lack of acknowledgment of his presence phased him. Steve knew Bucky wouldn’t recognize him. First, he removed the IV from his arm. Then he followed the rest of the tubes and realized how immensely, completely fucked the whole situation was. He hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t even thought about it, but Bucky’s feeding tube went straight to his stomach. That wasn’t something Steve knew how to fix. He didn’t know if it was okay to just remove a catheter and the other waste bag was even worse. He looked around and grabbed some medical tape. Steve didn’t know anything about medicine, and he wasn’t about to mess around with the shit Alex had Bucky hooked up to so he could continue to treat him like a fucking machine. Steve did his best to secure the bags to Bucky’s stomach and ankle before turning back to the connection at the back of his head. “Any input, Buck?” he asked the stowaway in his hair. “We are really far out of my wheelhouse, and I’m not leaving without you this time, so help me or we both die, basically.” 

Bucky-the-sphere rolled off Steve’s head, catching himself at about shoulder height for Steve. He flew around the tube a few times and then the golden light narrowed to a pin prick. It took Steve a moment to realize the light was focused in on a screw. Steve rushed to the drawers, pulling them open until he found some tools and selected a screwdriver that looked like it would fit. He undid the screw, and then the next that the sphere pointed out until it flew up and landed on Bucky-the-human’s head. Bucky-the-human didn’t seem to care either way. Tentatively, Steve pulled. The tube of cabling pulled out and Steve turned it slightly. It came free and he dropped it on the ground as alarms began to wail. 

“There has been a breach in the central processing unit,” Bucky said, but this time his voice didn’t echo throughout the room, let alone the house. “There has been a breach in the central processing unit. There has been-” 

Bucky suddenly stopped talking and let out a cry of pain as the sphere lodged itself into the hole where the cabling had been. His body seized and Steve immediately rounded the chair, trying to help even though he had no idea what he was doing. He put his hands on either side of Bucky’s face. “Bucky, hey, Buck-” he said, even though the seizing of his muscles probably wasn’t something that would stop if Steve could just calm him down. “Bucky, come on. Please, we have to get out of here. I’m stronger than I look, but I’m pretty sure I can’t carry you like this…” 

The seizing stopped as suddenly as it started. The sphere landed gently in Steve’s hair and they were both watching as Bucky-the-human opened his eyes. He stared at Steve for a moment before uttering. “Steve?” Steve beamed at him. 

“Yeah, Buck. Come on. We gotta get out of here, okay? We gotta find help.” 

Bucky mumbled something about Alex as they both worked to get him upright. He leaned heavily on Steve, and the blond wondered how he could stand at all. Did Alex let him walk around to maintain his muscle mass? Clearly, he needed to let that happen more because Bucky’s strength was almost nonexistent. Steve did his best to keep them both upright and balanced. He reached expertly for the hand as they headed out. 

As they passed the computer in Alex’s bedroom, Bucky stopped so abruptly he almost ending up falling and taking Steve with him. Thankfully, the man caught himself on the desk and Steve managed to do the rest. “Bucky, we have to go, we have to-” 

“Wait,” Bucky insisted. He reached forward to try to type, and fell into the desk. “Help me, Steve.” 

Steve could never argue with a point like that. He wrapped his arms around the man’s middle and did his best to keep him upright while he typed a bunch of letters and numbers that Steve was never going to remember let alone understand. Finally, a dialogue box popped up with one simple question: _**INITIALIZE?**_

Bucky looked at Steve, clearly still suffering the effects of whatever drugs Alex had been pumping into his veins. “When I hit yes, you start and you don’t stop no matter what, okay Steve?” 

“Same goes for you, pal. You don’t stop either. You stop, I stop.” 

“Not the deal,” Bucky insisted. “This is a program Alex made to destroy evidence. It takes out everything and everyone within a ten foot radius of the house.” 

“Then I’m definitely not leaving without you, pal.” 

“Stevie, just do what I say.” 

“We make ourselves, Bucky. We make our own choices, remember? If I’m creating myself for you, what good is it if you die in here? What’s more, if you created yourself for me, I get to keep that, right? You don’t make something for someone and then blow it up, asshole.” 

“What is asshole?” Bucky asked. 

“You, you fucking asshole. Come on. Hit the button, and _don’t fucking stop_.” 

Bucky gave Steve a wide-eyed look, but didn’t argue. This time, Alex’s voice came from the speakers. It was a pre-recorded message. “Program six nine zero three is activated. You better have fucking got the project done. Two minutes until tabula rasa.” 

They were already out the door. It was slow going with Bucky’s lack of strength and the awkwardness of trying not to disturb the various medical bags Steve had only barely secured. They made it down the steps by the time the one minute warning blared out. “Come on,” Steve said, and he wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to. They stumbled multiple times, but made it to the door still upright in time for “Thirty seconds until house demolition.” 

Steve smashed the stiffening hand against the reader. Circles formed around the fingertips to match them and then the keypad turned red and read, _**HEAT SIGNATURE ERROR**_. “Fuck,” Steve swore and then began to huff into the hand like it was his own and he was somewhere nice but snowy. He pressed it to the reader again and received the same error. His lungs already felt ready to give up the ghost, so he lifted his shirt and tried not to think the phrase “dismembered hand” as he pressed it to his bare stomach. 

“Steve?” Bucky asked uncertainly, but Steve ignored him. This was already taking everything he had. The alarms and the gory thing he was doing were already too much noise. “Ten, nine, eight,” the computer counted down and Steve slammed the hand into the reader. 

_**HEAT SIGNATURE ERROR**_

“FUCK!” Steve yelled, because they’d come too far to be trapped in this fucking house until the day they died, and to have that day be today. He turned, dragging Bucky with him. He didn’t know how he’d get Bucky up that ladder in the air vent, but he couldn’t just wait here to die. 

Alex met his eye. He was barely standing, a parody of his own creation who was leaning on Steve. Except Alex deserved this. He deserved the shitty impromptu bandage on his hand, to die in the thing he’d created to torture and imprison. 

At least that was what Steve was going to tell himself so he could sleep at night. 

The first explosion surprised them all. Steve and Bucky were blown away from each other by the impact, and Steve felt his vision tunneling as the wind was knocked out of him. He wheezed air in, slowly becoming aware of the wall at his back and Alex pleading, “Help me.” 

Steve looked up at him just in time for an explosion to send the ceiling crushing the man beneath the rubble. More nightmare fuel. Good. 

“Bucky!” Steve shouted. The man was crawling toward him. Steve met him halfway and they continued toward the vents. Another explosion rocked them into a wall and Steve hugged him hard until the ground evened out. “We’re getting out,” Steve promised, even though he wasn’t sure he believed it. 

They reached the fireplace just in time for the whole ceiling to collapse, blocking their way. The only place left to go was the study with its fake images of outside. It was cracked and broken, but there was still a visible and understandable beach displayed, orange with sunset. Steve slid down the wall, Bucky falling with him. He hugged him, something Bucky seemed confused by, though he hugged Steve back. “I’m sorry, Buck. I’m so sorry.” 

“You saved me, Steve,” Bucky assured him. 

Steve sobbed a little. “Just in time to kill you.” 

“It’s better than Alex,” Bucky replied, and Steve couldn’t argue with that. 

Still. “I wanted better for you,” Steve murmured. Another explosion rocked the house and he flinched downward. Bucky shielded him and Steve was almost glad they were going to die here like this, because for the first time in his life it felt like someone loved him and cared for him and was going to protect him. For the first time Steve could remember, it didn’t feel like he had to protect himself. It felt like he could trust someone. 

The sunset on the screen grew brighter. 

No, it wasn’t the screen. “Bucky-!” 

Without another word, they both scrambled for the hole that had opened up in the wall. Steve crawled through first and reached back to pull Bucky through. It almost worked until part of the hole collapsed on Bucky’s arm. Steve knew he was cursing, but it was all background noise. He helped Bucky get the rest of the way out before working to free his arm. No bones were poking out, but the bruising was bad and Steve wasn’t sure how much bone was okay in there. They scrambled away just as several massive explosions hit the house at once. The sky turned into fire and smoke and Steve forced himself not to look back. 

“We’re safe. We’re safe, Buck, we’re okay,” he babbled as they sank to the ground by a tree a few hundred yards from the house. Steve could see the road from here. “We’ll flag someone down over there. We’ll get you to the hospital, get the cops or something. It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay. Come on, get up. We’ll rest once we get help.” It was easier said than done, and Bucky was leaning more heavily on Steve than before, but he seemed alive in a way he never had. 

“Steve?” Bucky asked softly. “Is this… outside?” 

Steve’s face softened as he realized this was what he’d promised Bucky. He squeezed Bucky’s uninjured hand and smiled a little. 

“This is the world.” 


End file.
